SOCIALISM: 

THE NATION 

OF 

FATHEKLESS CHILDREN 



DAVID GOLDSTEIN 

AND 

MAKTHA MOORE AVERY 



THOMAS J. FLYNN & CO 

62-64 Essex Street 

BOSTON 






Patrick J. Supple, D.D., 

Censor Librorum, 



imprimatur : 

HhWlLLIAM, 

Archbishop of Boston, 



EXCHANGE 
LLEGE 
9- 1936 



NCEPTION COLLEGE US&m 



Copyrighted by 

AVERY AND GOLDSTEIN 

All Rights Reserved 



CONTENTS 



Preface. 

Introduction. 

The Materialist Doctrine op Socialism. 

Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 

Socialism International. 

Socialist Tactics. 

Public Ownership. 

Evolution. 

Morally Irresponsible. 

Political Atheism. 

Free Love. 

Homeless Children. 

Socialist Leaders. 

The State. 



ili 



STo our Country, in tije fcefence 
of economic justice; of domestic 
integrity; of ctbtl an& religious 
liberty; tfjfe book te bebtcatelu 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



When in 1903 we presented the first edition of "Socialism: 
The Nation of Fatherless Children" to the public we had only 
a very few friends, true blue. The public press paid but little 
attention to socialist propaganda ; and to the general public 
the movement was known by a phrase or two which signified 
condemnation without understanding or by those of approval 
which rested upon equally unknown ground. 

This indifference had given to socialists a foothold in the 
nation. Abnormal fortunes were matched by abnormal ambi- 
tions that had been aroused here and there amongst the members 
of the working class. These proletarian comrades in association 
with their intellectual leaders were preying upon the hopes and 
fears of their fellow workers, many of whom were receiving an un- 
just wage and were even so in constant dread of unemployment. 

On the other hand the occasion was ripe for interesting the 
illy educated middle class in the science of poverty — that it is 
all due to the system — and for enlisting its sympathy for the 
under dog, as their own fortunes were feeling the blight of 
"the trusts." 

This much was certain, that for socialist wares it was a 
rapidly rising market, and that for anti-socialist literature 
there was none at all. 

We were neither disturbed nor disappointed at the recep- 
tion of the book by the socialist press. Indeed we forecasted 
precisely what its reception would be, namely, silence more 
or less deep so long as the book had no added strength behind 
it; and then, for we were confident that the time would come 
when some force in the country would awaken to the menace 
of socialism, the knights of the quill would say what they would 
say. We had learned that the code of ethics of the morally 
irresponsible demanded successful propaganda. Hence those 
means were right that made progress. Progress had to them 



vi Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

ceased to have any but one meaning — an advance towards 
the view of the "class-conscious." Going any other way, 
towards right-reason for instance, was, with a shrug of con- 
tempt, "reactionary," or intellectual dope. 

What then was the support of our confidence ? Simply the 
consciousness of the integrity of our intention. Our inner 
circle of three was secure in the belief that we would pay the 
price demanded by the occasion for the possession of truth, be 
that progress toward it never so thorny and rough. 

But precisely what the socialist press said about " Socialism: 
The Nation of Fatherless Children" may be of interest. We 
quote : 

"The falsehoods of the Avery-Goldstein 'household' will be effectu- 
ally run down, for the socialists campaign the year around, and another 
year will find such enemies powerless to further deceive the people, 
while the socialist advance will surprise the plutes as much as did the 
big gain of a year ago.". {Social Democratic Herald, i i-i 4-1903 .) 

"A vile and slanderous book which has been taken up by certain anti- 
socialist priests, has also caught the eye it appears, of Samuel Gompers, 
who is trying to protect his job by despairing and vain efforts to keep 
socialism out of the American Federation of Labor, and he has written an 
autograph endorsement of the book." {Social Democratic Herald, 
Milwaukee 9-5-1904.) 

"They were very careful not to send the book out to the socialist 
press. It is full of malicious untruth, dishonest quotations from so-called 
socialist authorities, and rumor has it that the National Republican 
Committee helped the pair to finance this one legitimate 'child.' " {Social 
Democratic Herald, 5-1 4- 1904.) 

"Wonder what has become of Martha Moore Avery and her affinity, 
Goldstein? It is about time they found a purchaser with either Parker 
or Roosevelt, in defense of the family. But it seems to be rather a poor 
fakir market this year — no competition between buyers and an over- 
production of commodities of the fakir kind." (Editorial, Chicago 
Socialist, 9-3-1904.) 

"Amass of foul lies." {Chicago Daily Socialist, 3-20-1909.) 
". . . has long since joined the Goldstein- A very Company. The 
initiation fee is a few articles against socialism, guaranteed not to contain 
a spark of truth.". {The New York Call, 5-4-1909.) 

Resolution: condemning Mr. Samuel Gompers, "(for a) base misuse 
of his official position by giving his official endorsement to a vile, scurrilous 
misrepresentation of the science of socialism." {The Appeal to Reason, 
11-12-1904.) 



Preface to the Second Edition. vii 

' Hillquit, Spargo, London, Simons, Wayland, Warren, Vail, Sanial, 
Hanford, Ghent, DeLeon, Wentworth, Hunter and a host of other American 
socialist authors and writers are all conveniently ignored by Mr. Roose- 
velt. Their books are in all our public libraries, but Mr. Roosevelt can 
find nothing in them, not even a line in a single one, to serve his malign 
purpose, and so he stoops down to the gutter and picks up, dripping with 
filth, 'Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children,' and bespatters the 
once-clean pages of The Outlook with its loathsome slime." (Eugene V. 
Debs in, The Appeal to Reason, 5-1 -1909.) 

(A letter received by the Publishers of "Socialism: The Nation of 
Fatherless Children.") 

"Orange, N. J., Aug. 31, 1904. 
"The Union News League:— 

. I do not know if your firm has any standing in the 
community or not, but if you have it only goes to prove that the socialist 
contention is right, that Capitalism tends to debauch and corrupt all the 
means of information by the use of the sources of wealth. What a grand 
combination for the future Socialist Historian to dwell upon. The Traitors 
will go down in history with the Benedict Arnolds, etc. 

"But after all we socialists should be grateful that such stuff is being 
published as it proves conclusively that Capitalism is becoming desperate 
in using such means to perpetuate its existance. 

"Trusting that in the future you will be engaged in better work, 

"I remain a socialist, 

"W. B. KILLINGBECK, 

"Secretary, State Committee of the Socialist Party of New Jersey' 1 

The International Socialist Review, Chicago, 111., May 1904. 

BOOK REVIEW. 

'Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children' . . 

"This work has generally been passed over by the socialist press with- 
out notice. The reason for this is at once apparent to the socialist reader. 
The arguments are so palpably fallacious and the quotations from socialist 
authors so flagrantly unfair that the impression which it leaves upon the 
socialist reader is simply that no one of any intelligence would be affected 
by it. It must be remembered, however, that the book was not written 
for people of intelligence. The book is intended for circulation among the 
ignorant and bigoted followers of theological leaders. It is intended to 
create a prejudice in their minds which will prevent them from reading 
and reasoning about socialist literature. That it might have an effect 
among such people there is no doubt. The whole aim and object of the 
book is to show that socialists are endeavoring to introduce a state of 
sexual promiscuity. 



viii Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

'■'■'. . . There is a peculiar style about the book which suggests to 
one who is familiar with the Jesuitical anti-socialist writings of Europe, 
that other hands than those that appear upon the title page have had 
something to do with its preparation. There is a peculiar set of double 
meanings running through it which characterize all the European writings 
referred to above, but which have hitherto been absent from the anti- 
socialist writings of the country. 

"The idea is carried throughout the work that socialism is hypocritical 
and presents two faces, one to the public for propaganda purposes, the 
other to converts, and that there is a sort of inner circle wherein the 
'mysteries of socialism' are taught to the adepts. To this inner circle 
only are The Communist Manifesto and the materialistic interpretation of 
history known. . . . It is worth while that socialists should some- 
what familiarize themselves with this sort of stuff, since if the present 
crusade of the Catholic church continues, it is probable that more books 
of a similar character will appear. It would be the easiest thing in the 
world to go through the book and pick out ridiculous and erroneous 
statements, but this would by no means have any effect in counteracting 
the work of the book, since it does not appeal to the intellect but to the 
prejudice." 

Very little else has been said about the book by the socialist 
press. But the second edition of "Socialism: The Nation of 
Fatherless Children" is, we believe, destined to receive more 
notice— of the same kind. 

To the American public this work is now entrusted. If it 
shall play the part intended, it shall be of some little service 
in stimulating the belief that none other than God is the Author 
of nations and none other than patriots shall keep alive and 
cherish Social Justice and a sound heart in our body politic. 

Boston, 

Independence Day 
1911 



INTRODUCTION. 



"What in me is dark 
Illumine, what is low raise and support ; 
That to the height of this great argument 
I may assert eternal Providence 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

— Milton. 

WHEN a movement attracts to itself so large a following 
as socialism has, it is deserving of serious consideration. 
Does the power of its attraction lie in its analysis or in its con- 
demnation of existing forms or in its promise of establishing a 
higher order of society? 

Careful study of the socialist movement will prove that 
its centre of attraction is its negative condemnatory attitude 
rather than in its positive understanding of the underlying 
causes and conditions which press upon the public conscience 
for solution ; that its attractiveness lies in its promise of a new 
mould for the whole existing order rather than in its under- 
standing of those principles which make for true progress. 

On the destructive side socialism stands for the abolition 
of the present educational, religious, family, social and econo nic 
fcrms of society. While on the constructive side it declares for 
the ownership of economic capital by the people organized into 
a "business administration." The other departments of govern- 
mental activity will be abolished. Each and every person will 
be allowed the free exercise of personal will, without the com- 
munities' hand showing itself in legal or other form of authority. 
"The place of a government over persons is taken by the ad- 
ministration of things." ("Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," 
by Frederick Engels). 

"Under socialism the government will have no other function but 
the administration of the public industries. Socialism is opposed to all 
interference with the personal liberties of the people." (Appeal to 
Reason, July nth, 1903.) 

1 



2 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Socialists complain, and justly so, that many of its oppo- 
nents quote Spencer, Duehring, Sombart, Boehm Bawerk, 
Ely, Flint, Rae, Kirkup and others of kindred schools as authority 
on socialism. They argue "you would not quote Tom Paine 
or Ingersoll as authorities on the divine inspiration of the 
Bible — why quote our opponents as authority on socialism?" 
This error we shall strictly avoid. We shall listen to the evidence 
and take the testimony from the mouth and pen of the recognized 
national and international authorities on modern socialism. 
For our desire is that the socialist position may be clearly under- 
stood by the men who cast their votes in favor of a socialist 
political program, that the responsibility of this knowledge 
may rest upon those men when entering the sacred precincts 
of the voting booths should they ask themselves the question, 
"Is it to the best interest of the men, women and children of the 
present generation and of generations to come, to centralize 
political power into the hands of men who are committed to 
the philosophy of socialism?" 

One point must be clearly understood by the reader, 
which is that it is not our purpose to analyze the evils from 
which men suffer owing to unjust economic conditions — or 
from otherwise unfavorable causes — neither is it our purpose 
to offer a panacea for any of them. But our object rather is 
to present unquestionable data which will allow a comprehen- 
sive view of the quality of the forces which are gathering for 
political expression under the socialist banner. 

Certainly men who impartially investigate the economic 
unrest which disturbs the whole social fabric will find many 
evils justly entitled to severe condemnation by those who seek 
a higher standard of industrial Hfe. It is true that we have a 
degree of aristocracy in industry which is out of harmony 
with the fullness of our democracy in government. But 
after all is said about the terrible economic conditions that 
prevail— the deeper — the more important — the vital question, 
which requires the will of a Moses, the head of an Aaron and 
the heart of the Nazarene to solve, is what shall be. done to 
soften the human heart, to elevate the human mind, and to 
discipline the human will, that social harmony may be the 
possession of man? 



Introduction. 3 

The socialist is quick to give his answer, dissolve the present 
order ! Having walled himself within the narrow breastworks 
of "economic determinism," his concept of the state, the family 
and the industrial world covers only the distance encompassed 
by the dim light of atheistic understanding. He fails to see 
the length, breadth and depth of the present order : The 
advantages which we enjoy, despite the disadvantages given 
as a result of the establishment and development of the state 
which protects life, liberty and property and guarantees the 
system of free contracts. He fails to realize the divine institu- 
tion of the family in its monogamic form — fails to distinguish 
between a family and a collection of persons as the necessary 
basis of organized society. He fails to see that industry is 
established upon and is maintained upon the basis of equity. 
How easy! The state? abolish it. The family? make it 
free — abolish its legal and ecclesiastical forms. The industries ? 
let the people confiscate the capital and own it in common. 
Socialists would throw over the inheritance of all the centuries; 
pull down the experience that has led the race out of darkness. 
Blinded by the spirit of hatred, they centre the mind on the 
economic conditions as the fundamental cause of all social evils. 

Sarfg men dealing scientifically with sociological matters 
examine the phenomenon which presents itself, seeking to 
correct present abuses — seeking to erect new forms to re- 
place outworn methods. While socialists, in unscientific, 
irrational manner, seek the complete overthrow of the pres- 
ent form of society, putting forth as a substitute brilliant but 
speculative conditions, which in the nature of things and from 
all data extant has experimentally been proven impracticable. 

This conclusion is not the thought of a day, but the deliberate 
judgment of those who had been intoxicated with the socialist 
vision of a cooperative commonwealth, where equality of 
industrial opportunity would regulate all human affairs, sub- 
stituting this alluring prospect for those supreme religious 
qualities which shall one day turn spears into ploughshares 
and swords into pruning hooks. 

Painfully recovering from this intellectual debauch, with 
sober earnest we set to work examining critically the quality of 
literature and the character of the movement, which resulted 
in our severing all connection with socialist organizations 



Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 

"Could great men thunder 
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, 
For every pelting, petty officer, 
Would use his heaven for thunder ; 
Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven! 
Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, 
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarl-ed oak, 
Than the soft myrtle : but man, proud man! 
Drest in a little brief authority 
Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 
His glassy essence, — like an angry ape, 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep." 

— Measure for Measure. 

WE shall show that the socialist movement rests upon 
and proceeds more or less logically from a mere ma- 
terialist basis — that it concerns itself with the questions of 
wealth production and distribution mainly because in its view 
the conditions under which economic necessities are produced 
form the fundamental groundwork from which all social, in- 
tellectual, religious and other institutions emanate. Frederick 
Engels puts it as follows : 

"The juridical, philosophical, and religious ideas are the more or less 
remote offshoots of the economical relations existing in a given society." 

The Appeal to Reason (June 6, 1903) says: 

"The economic conditions of any country, at any period, form the 
basis of all human effort. All social, political, legal, moral and religious 
institutions are built upon the economic basis.", 

George D. Herron, under the caption, "There cannot 
be any Reconcilation Between Capital and Labor," in 7/V 
Metropolitan Magazine and The Appeal to Reason (May 16, 
1903) writes: 

"Socialism begins with this — that the history of the world has been 
economic. The world's sentiments and religions, its laws and morals, 

4 



Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 5 

its art and literatures, are all rooted in the struggle between classes for 
the control of the food supply. Moses and Jesus, Wickliffe and Massini, 
Marx and Millet are products of the stress and injustice of intensified 
economic conditions. War is but a final mode of economic competition. 
Religions, in their first and purest expressions, are all economic revolts- 
appeals and protests against the ownership of souls involved in economic 
ownership. 

"Laws, creeds, governments, morals, and arts are chiefly the expres- 
sion of those who have lived off of other people, and who have made laws 
and religions, and arts and morals for the purpose of compelling these 
others to support them while they should fight or preach or make laws 
or write books.'' 

At the last Socialist National Convention delegate Ernest 
Untermann sets forth not alone the fact of the movement's 
opposition to Christianity but also shows the method of mak- 
ing atheists. Instruction in the "logical consequences" of 
socialism upon religion is to be given, privately, after member- 
ship cards have been taken out. We quote from the official 
Proceedings (1908): 

"Comrades, no one will accuse me with any sympathy with Chris- 
tianity as a church or as a religion. I am known in the United States as 
a materialist of the most uncompromising order. ... I want it 
understood that my materialist dialectics do not permit me to forget the 
exigencies of the moment for our ideals in the far future. 

"Would you expect to go out among the people of this country, 
people of different churches, of many religious factions, and tell them 
that they must become atheists before they can become socialists? That 
would be nonsense. We must first get these men convinced of the 
rationality of our economic and political program, and then after we 
have made socialists of them and members of the Socialist Party, we can 
talk to them inside of our ranks, talk of the higher philosophy and of the 
logical consequences of our explanation of society and nature." 

These data form a correct starting point from which to view 
the basis of socialist doctrine and to get a glimpse of socialist 
logic. Socialism rests upon the assumption that all human 
institutions of whatever nature "are the more or less remote 
offshoots of the economic relations." Or as George D. Herron 
more plainly puts it "The world's sentiments and religions, its 
laws and morals, its arts and literature, are all rooted in the 
struggle between classes for the control of the food supply." 



6 Socialism, the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Let its defenders answer, does or does not socialism deny 
the validity of revealed religion, and does it attack or defend 
the basis upon which the church rests? 

The "materialist conception of history"— the foundation- 
stone of socialist philosophy is clearly laid down in "Socialism, 
Utopian and Scientific," by Frederick Engels. 

"The materialistic conception of history proceeds upon the principle 
that production, and, next to production, the exchange x>i its products, 
is the ground-work of ^ very social order; and that in every social system, 
that has arisen historically, the distribution of the products, together 
with" the social divisions into classes and orders, depends upon that which 
is produced, and the manner in which it is produced, and also upon 
the manner in which the articles produced are exchanged. 

. . . The awakening perception that existing social institutions 
are unreasonable and unjust, that sense has become non-sense, and right 
wrong, is only an evidence that, in the methods of production and forms 
of exchange, changes have silently taken place with which the social 
order, fitted to the previous economic conditions, is no longer in keeping. 
Hereby it is at the same time implied that the means for the removal of 
the discovered abuses must be latent and more or less developed in the 
changed conditions of production themselves.'! 



Engels' materialistic basis of history alleges that eco- 
nomic development causes to be built up and to be outgrown all 
human institutions, and this work is accepted as authority by 
the overwhelming majority of socialists of national and inter- 
national repute. It was officially recommended by the National 
Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, January 22, 1909. 

That God ordained a religion and established His Church 
on earth plays no part whatsoever in their calculations. 

Ernest Belfort Bax, who is perhaps no lesser authority 
than Engels himself, declares that "the result of economical 
revolution implies a correlative change in the basis of ethics 
and religion" ("Ethics of Socialism.") Indeed Mr, Bax is 
at the head of this department. The Social Democrat, the 
official organ of the Social Democratic Federation of London, 
England, says in its issue of January, 1903, "Bax is the philo- 
sophic reasoner and exponent of socialist theory and doctrine," 
of the world-wide movement. 

The American movement rates the materialistic philosopher 
no less highly : "Bax is the most accomplished writer on behalf 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 7 

of socialism in this and perhaps in any country." (The Call, 
April :8, 1909).: : :;; 

Certainly it is not a superficial attack which socialism makes 
upon: the belief- in the: Creator of the universe. At one fell 
swoop they would take the ground from under all faith in God. 

But listen to Marx ("Capital," Chicago Edition, 1906, 
page 91), "Christianity with its cultus of abstract man, more 
especially in its bourgeois developments, Protestantism, Deism, 
etc., is the most fitting form of religion" in which the present 
mode of exchange of commodities takes place. Let us take 
further testimony from The Appeal to Reason (May 16, 1903). 

"Fifty-five years have now passed by since Karl Marx formulated 
his materialist conception of history, and gave to the world its first 
science of economics. The 'Communist Manifesto' reads like a document 
written yesterday. . . . When Marx analyzed society and found 
that ethics, morals and religions are all the products of economic or 
material conditions, he was able to predict with certainty the future 
conduct of society, even as does the astronomer predict the coming of 
an eclipse.", 

Here is hard, cold materialism in a nutshell. The socialist 
creed has it that as God is an imaginary being, his nature is 
changed every time improved methods of production come into 
vogue. 

Of course if this view were as scientific as the predicted 
coming of an eclipse it were then necessary for socialism 
neither to attack religion nor to instruct its converts as to 
the "logical consequences" of its atheist philosophy. Because 
as the socialist regime were establishing itself God and religion 
would fade away and finally depart. 

New comers are generally quite innocent of the "logical 
consequences" of socialist propaganda. But the denial of its 
underlying principles is more often the deliberate attempt 
to conceal from the general public the real import of its aims 
in the interest of gathering numerical strength. Equivocal 
statement is always prompted by the desire to make the doctrine 
as little distasteful to the camp followers and sympathizers 
as possible. 

The late Thomas McGrady was a most successful propa- 
gandist, but his Christianity was too deeply ingrain to permit 



8 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

the view that the church must of necessity fall in upon itself 
once the co-operative commonwealth were established. Father 
McGrady insisted that : 

"Socialism does not beget atheism any more than chemistry begets 
infidelity. Socialism is an economic science, not a religious creed. We 
must look elsewhere for the causes of atheism than in socialism. The 
so-called father of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson, was an 
infidel; and Robert Ingersoll, the agnostic, was a leading Republican 
in his day." 

Granted, for the sake of argument, that Jefferson was 
an infidel, certainly that does not prove that the democratic 
party is committed to a program of infidelity, for the good 
reason that Jefferson's ' 'bible" is not accepted as the bulwark 
of the democratic program. Yes, Ingersoll was an ag- 
nostic, an intellectual bluffer. But Ingersoll's irrational at- 
tacks upon religion and the church are not circulated by the 
republican party as the basis of its philosophy. Therefore, 
what rational analogy is there in McGrady's statement, con- 
sidering the fact that the irreligious teachings of Marx and 
Engels are circulated as fundamental propaganda matter? 
That the ''materialistic concept of history," which is a gross 
denial of the rationale of revealed religion, is generally accepted 
by socialists, not alone in the United States but throughout the 
civilized world in past cavil. Let us restate it in Marx's own 
words : 

"The life process of society, which is based on the process of ma- 
terial production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated 
as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated 
by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however, demands 
for society a certain material groundwork or set of conditions of ex- 
istence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and 
painful process of development." ("Capital," page 92.) 

The dispute of new comers with the well seasoned members 
as to socialism being a purely economic question is not new to 
the history of the party. Ernest Belfort Bax whose opinions 
we have shown to be of international importance — but we will 
allow socialists to bespeak him fair : 

"Ernest Belfort Bax is one of the best- known and most versatile 
and accomplished socialists of Europe. His published works form a 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism, g 

small library in themselves and are everywhere held in highest respect 
by the recognized leaders of the international socialist movement. Per- 
haps the best known of his works are : 'The Religion of Socialism,' 'Ethics 
of Socialism,' 'Outspoken Essays,' 'Outlooks from the new Standpoint,' 
'Life of Jean Paul Marat,' 'Handbook of the History of Philosophy,' 
'Story of the French Revolution, "A Short History of the Paris Commune,' 
and, in conjunction with William Morris, 'Socialism: Its Growth and 
Outcome.' This quite formidable list represents, I believe, less than half 
of his original works, in addition to which are numerous translations, 
including a volume of Schopenhauer's Essays, and Kant's 'Foundations 
of Natural Science.' 

"Born in Warwickshire, England, in 1854, he studied in Germany — 
music first, then philosophy. The Paris Commune of 1871 aroused his 
sympathy and led him to study socialism. He was one of the founders 
of the Social Democratic Federation in England and during the twenty odd 
years which have elapsed since then he has ever been an active worker 
in the cause. It was he who first induced William Morris to join the 
socialist movement. He is a familiar figure at all international congresses 
of the socialist movement." ("The Comrade," New York December, 
1902). 

In his review of Kirkup's, "An Inquiry into Socialism, " 
Mr. Bax says, editorially in "The Commonweal," Vol. 4, No. 
116: 

" While fully agreeing with those socialists who would avail them- 
selves of all, even the most apparently trifling efforts tending to raise 
the present condition of the working classes, . . . yet nevertheless I 
think too strong a protest cannot be raised against the habit of either 
blinking or minimising the ideal which all true socialists have in view. 
It is undeniable that there are certain well-meaning but ' philistinic ' 
persons who are forever going about with tongue and pen trying to 
convince weak minded and timid hearers or readers that the modern 
proletarian mountain is, after all, only pregnant with a sort of big mouse. 
The way they do this is sometimes specious, and hence it is difficult to 
convict them in flagrante delicto. For instance, their first proceeding is 
to draw a ring-fence round economics and insist that socialism is economi- 
cal and has nothing to say on any other aspect of human life than that 
of the production and distribution of wealth." 

Mr. Bax proceeds to elucidate the issue in his critique upon 
Kirkup's "Chapter on Current Views of Socialism." 

(1.) "Mr. Kirkup starts with the marriage question. The opposi- 
tion between the ' bourgeois property marriage' and that which will take 
its place is of course sought to be toned down. While admitting that 



io Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

most leading socialists have attacked the modern or Christian marriage 
With its indissolubility or quasi-indissolubility, Mr. Kirkup 'cannot see 
that as a theory of economic organization socialism can have any special 
teaching adverse to marriage and the family.' Now this is because Mr. 
Xirkup chooses to set up a ring-fence again, ignoring his own definition 
of socialism given above as 'a theory of social organization, based on a 
new scheme of economic organization.' The passage quoted above 
implies that there is only one form of marriage and the family, that of 
the modern Christian and the bourgeois. Of course as a ' theory of 
economic organization,' socialism need not have any special teaching 
4 adverse ' to this ; but as a matter of practice the modern marriage and 
modern family is sustained by the modern system of property, and 
when the latter gives place to something else, so must the former : .. . . 
It is also not true to say that the views on this question of the 'leading 
socialist writers' referred to as attacking the present marriage system, 
have been 'strenuously opposed within the socialist schools.' I challenge 
Mr. Kirkup to show a single case in point. 

(2.) "Socialism is 'by many' believed to be hostile to Christianity, 
etc. Of course here Mr. Kirkup must step in and plead that 'the connec- 
tion with views of this nature is purely accidental.' It is on a par with 
the attempt in the ' Britanica' article (vol. xxii, p. 220) to make out that 
socialism is not more international than any other movement (artistic 
or literary, for example). So here, Mr. Kirkup trots out his favorite 
notion about socialism not being more hostile to Christianity than Con- 
tinental Liberalism. It is difficult to think that a man of Mr. Kirkup' s 
reading can fail to see that the internationalism, like the anti-Christian- 
ism of socialism, is a very different thing from the Internationalism of 
art or commerce, or the anti-clericalism of the Radical. Of course, 
having drawn this ring-fence round the economical theory of socialism, 
it naturally follows that he can exclude everything else but pure econom- 
ics from the essence of socialism. But this economic-and-nothing-but- 
economic-socialrsm is a 'metaphysical abstraction.' One of the greatest 
insights of Marx was that of the connection of the economic with the 
other aspects of human life. And socialism as a revolutionary theory 
of society implies an ethical, religious and political revolution as 
a consequence of the economic one. As such its opposition to the 
present forms of these things, which in their turn are based on the econom- 
ics of present society, is a matter of socialistic principle and in nowise 
'non-essential* or merely a question of temporary policy as with the 
Continental Liberal, who, for the rest, never contemplates anything but 
the curtailment of clerical influence. I would put it to Mr. Kirkup and 
those other professors of the 'science of socialism made easy to the 
middle-class philistine,' whether they think it would be compatible with 
socialism to have a clerical class setting themselves upas spiritual teachers 
and living on the labor of others, or even allow the small minority who 
habitually frequent 'places of worship,' to monopolize lands and buildings 
for the purpose of their cultus. 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. ii 

"Mr. Kirkup further states that socialism 'has also been associated 
with Christianity, Catholic and Protestant.' Now in how far is this 
true? In the same sense in which it has been associated with orthodox 
views as to the family, etc. The fact of the matter is this : Socialism 
has by a process of natural selection become the name of a great move- 
ment beginning with the present century, having for its end the re-organi- 
zation of human life, moral and material, on a basis of equality of right; 
and duties. This movement, on its theoretical no less than on its prac- 
tical side, is distinguished by certain well marked stages. The theory 
of socialism as a coherent doctrine began with the three great utopist 
systems of Robert Owen, Fourier and St. Simon. Not one of these 
systems took what I may term the abstract-economic view of the sub- 
ject. They all regarded human life as an integral system, and never 
dreamt of separating its several aspects. They were all anti-Christian, 
all opposed to the modern form of marriage, and if not explicitly inter- 
national they were at least implicitly so. The latter schools of French 
socialism have always had something to say in the same sense on the 
subjects of religion, marriage, and racial boundaries, that is, always in 
a sense hostile to the existing forms of these institutions. Finally, 
modern 'scientific' socialism, while accentuating the economical revolu- 
tion implied in the word, has none the less insisted on the fact that the 
other aspects of human life must undergo a corresponding change. 

"So much for the growth of socialist theory. But — and here lies 
the equivoque of Mr. Kirkup's position — concurrently with the latter 
form of this development of true theoretical socialism there has been a 
series of spurious and bastard systems, clearly distinguishable as such, 
and which have sprung consciously, or unconsciously for the most part, 
from a dread of the new economic change. They may be known by this 
very sign, that they appear to adopt the economic side of socialism 
while overtly rejecting the notion of the other social changes which that 
side implies. But when more nearly viewed, it will be found that they 
do not really accept the economic revolution at all, but merely some 
scheme which can be made to bear a superficial resemblance to it. Like 
Pharaoh's soothsayers, the bourgeois also 'did so with their enchant- 
ments. ' ' Christian socialism ' such as that of the Comte de Mun in France 
on the side of Catholicism, or of Herr StOcker in Germany on the ■ ide of 
Protestantism, the various co-operative schemes with which the working 
classes have been from time to time deceived, belong to this spurious 
socialism. As the devil of mediaeval fancy, or Walpurgis night, travestied 
the proceedings supposed to take place before the judgment seat of God, 
so the modern bourgeois travesties the aspirations of the real proletarian 
movement in a series of artificially produced counter-movements. In 
this sense only can it be said that socialism has been 'associated with 
Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant.' It is not easy to under- 
stand that those desirous of maintaining a class society, and recognizing 
the importance and 'danger' of socialism, think if they but hold the 
proletariat in leash tied to three venerable institutions, 'the hearth, the 



12 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

throne, and the altar,' or any one of them, that the proletariat is by the 
very fact rendered harmless. 'Oh, drudge, where is thy sting? Oh, 
slave, where is thy victory?' Not under the segis of Christian, philan- 
thropic, or co-operative ' socialism ' we must rest assured. 

"I have desired under the form of a review of Mr. Kirkup's new book, 
where the practice appears in its rankest form, to call attention to the 
illegitimacy of the attempt so often made nowadays to limit the word 
socialism, in a mechanical manner, to the sphere of economics — while 
objection is taken to its being applied to what the economical change 
implies in other departments of human activity. Such a limitation is 
not logically nor historically valid." 

From an authority which to this time (191 1) is recognized 
as the highest is here not adequate proof that the materialism 
upon which socialism is grounded insists that "free love" and 
no God are integral parts of its doctrinal system. Did we not, 
while making the futile attempt at the 1902 Massachusetts 
State Convention to secure the repudiation of this class of 
literature, insist that there was proof — overwhelming proof — 
that socialist classics were rilled with this vile stuff? That even 
though socialist politicians may bluff the rank and file of their 
camp followers, yet "the damned spot will not out." 

Should it be objected that this opinion is English "you 
know" we submit an American authority: 

"We can no more hope to escape the struggle against the religion 
of capitalism than we may hope to escape the struggle against its econo- 
mics. And we have no business attempting to escape it. Yet there has 
been more than a tendency in that direction in our ranks of late. ' Social- 
ism is simply a question of economics,' says one. 'It has nothing to 
do with morals,' says another. 'Socialism is nothing more nor less than 
a matter of economic theory,' and so on. In most instances those who 
thus narrowly define socialism are the first to complain of what they are 
pleased to describe as the ' rigid and barren materialism ' of the followers 
of Marx. They do not, apparently, see that their own fear of the issues 
before them, which these answers are vain attempts to evade, have made 
of their socialism a cold, barren, harsh materialism, without one solitary 
spiritual attraction. Only when we are brave enough to be true to the 
world, and to ourselves, concerning our faith, shall we be able to discern 
its full spiritual beauty. When that courage is ours, and not till then, 
the glory and inspiration of socialism will also be ours." (Editorial, The 
Comrade, May, 1903.) 

Is materialism being outgrown as the acknowledged founda- 
tion of socialist belief? We shall take further testimony of the 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 13 

last National Convention of the Socialist Party, 1908 (Official 
Proceedings, pp. 191-205) to witness to the fact that it is not. 
Although like Jack in the box, now you see it and now you 
don't. 

When politically astute delegates finesse, they must of 
course assume the innocence of their constituency, but when they 
publish the history of their falsehood, they evidently do not 
mind insulting the intelligence of the public. For to the least 
thoughtful it must seem strange indeed that as the Socialist 
Party "is not concerned with matters of religious belief" that the 
religious plank, so the Chicago Daily Socialist (May 18, 1908) 
says "precipitated a storm before which all other contests made 
in the convention sank into insignificance. " 

And was the "storm" created because some stood for and 
some against materialism as their basic doctrine ? 

It was not. The storm broke over the convention at the 
proposal to deny that anti-religious principles lie at the base 
of the socialist movement. Said delegate Strickland : 

"If economic determinism be true, and if the moral and ethical 
principles of society be based ultimately upon the manner of economic 
production, how dare you then say that we have nothing to do with 
religion.' ' 

Delegate Arthur Morrow Lewis was at first willing to concede 
only so far as to "let sleeping dogs lie. " He said: 

"I know that the socialist position in philosophy on the question 
of religion does not make a good campaign subject. It is not useful 
in the propaganda of a presidential campaign, and therefore I am will- 
ing that we should be silent about it. But if we must speak I propose 
that we shall go before this country with the truth and not with a lie." 

But bad faith proved to be good tactics. So at the even- 
ing session when the vote was about to be taken delegate Lewis 
said, after a conference with Berger, Hillquit, Work and other 
members of the Platform Committee: "I am willing that the 
plank shall remain, and I am willing to vote for it and ask those 
comrades who loyally supported my position this afternoon to 
go with me in support of that plank." 

Of course that plank was no less a lie, no less hypocritical, 



14 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

nor no more in keeping with party doctrine than it was a few 
hours before when delegate Lewis had said : 

"Now, I do not propose to state in this platform the truth about 
religion from the point of view of the socialist philosophy as it is stated 
in almost every book of Standard Socialist literature; but if we do not 
do that, let us at least have the good grace to be silent about it and not 
make hypocrites of ourselves." 

As the sleeping dogs had been aroused and the capitalist 
press was ready to report the barking, it was better to be hypo- 
critical than it was to be non-tactical. 

Especially as delegate Hillquit had cooled off the anti- 
Christian heat somewhat by saying: 

"The fact that comrade Lewis as a scholar, as a student of psy- 
chology, of history, of ethics and of everything else, has in the domain 
of religion come to the position of an agnostic (which is merely the po- 
lite name for atheist) and that ninety-nine per cent of us have landed 
in the same spot, does not make socialism agnostic, nor is socialism 
Christian nor is socialism Jewish." 

Having set the Jewish strength of the convention over 
against the influence of the two or three so-called Christian 
socialists, Hillquit adroitly reminded his comrades that to tell 
the truth about socialist doctrine required more courage than 
they possessed. He said: 

"I am confident that those who have applauded, most emphati- 
cally, most noisly these utterances against the adoption of this plank, 
when they find themselves on the soap-box and are asked the question 
— Won't your socialism destroy religion? — will answer, 'No, we don't 
agree on it.' The trouble with us is that we have not always the courage 
of our conviction." 

At this convention there were present many to revile 
Christianity but none to defend it. The Rev. Edward E. Carr 
said not a word, while the Rev. Eliot White joined in the chorus 
brawling its defeat. This delegate, announcing himself a 
Christian minister in good standing and a scientific socialist to 
boot, also wanted the convention to let "sleeping dogs lie." 
Those who won't believe that Christian institutions have got to 
down must find it out for themselves he said: 

"I am sorry for some of my old bigoted Christian friends because 
they have so much to learn — Christianity is up against the biggest crisis 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 15 

it has ever faced— the Reformation and everything else included — 
it is in the greatest danger of going to pieces — I am perfectly frank 
to say— that Christianity as some Christians understand it — is bound 
to go under,, has got to go down." 

It was left for a delegate who would neither affirm nor deny 
himself to be a Catholic, who worked in the factory with Catholics 
and was supposed by them to be a Catholic to tell just how 
the trick could be worked of harmonizing the irreligion of 
socialism with the religion of his fellow-workmen if the plank were 
left out. Delegate Devine said: 

"I am asked by the Catholics how can I be a socialist and a Catho- 
lic? Now, I want to be in a position where I can harmonize those things. 
I recognize that the church has taken an attitude against the Social- 
ist Party. I know of a comrade in the factory who was refused abso- 
lution because he was a socialist. It seems to me I am forced to take 
the position I do to-day so that I can keep i:hat comrade in the Social- 
ist Party, not so much for his vote as for his strength.'/. 

How was it then that the plank carried ? 

Oh, the convention was shown a better trick. For just as 
in honest discussion a good reason must perforce give way to a 
better one just so in dishonest discussion must a good trick give 
way to a better one. So it was that delegate Robert Hunter's 
trick carried the convention by showing a better way to prove 
the lie that socialism "is not concerned with matters of religious 
belief." 

Of course there was hot shot against adopting the plank, for 
every delegate there acquainted with his doctrine knew that 
Vander Porten gave the game away when he said: 

"Let it be understood that the moment the Socialist Party's whole 
aim and object is to get votes, we can get them more quickly by try- 
ing to please the religionists and those whose only ambition is to pray 
to God and crush mankind. But — to spread forth to the world that 
religion is the individual's affair and that religion has no part in the 
subjection of the human race; we lie when we say it." 

It was, however, delegate Berger that pointed out that the 
religious opposition to the Socialist Party was not a theory 
merely, but a concrete condition in the powerful person of the 
Catholic Church. "The Church," he said, "is with the capitalist 



16 SocialisxM: the Nation of FatherlEvSs Children. 

class, without doubt, especially the church per se, the Roman 
Catholic Church. " And then with a hop and a skip the delegate 
— who is now the Socialist Congressman from Milwaukee- 
mounted his hobby horse; and the materialist conception of 
history was trotted out to show that the Church was opposed 
by Rousseau, Voltaire and other great atheist philosophers in 
the Eighteenth Century just as it is now opposed by the omni- 
present Berger himself. Then turning a double summersault in 
the air the one and only Berger landed on both sides at once. 
He complained while he boasted, that since his 

"open discussion in the newspapers with Archbishop Messmer — there 
has been a constant agitation against all socialists as atheists. You 
can hardly find a paper in which we are not denounced as men who want 
to abolish all religion and God." 

To meet the condition the delegate called for a masterly 
inactivity, for something must be done, by doing nothing, 
"to show that socialism, being an economic theory — or rather 
the name for an epoch of civilization — has nothing to do with 
religion either way, neither pro nor con." 

And yet the plank carried, for a majority of one thought 
more voters and more members could be caught if the platform 
had something in it to prove a lie a fact. Who could dispute the 
fact of the printed page. It was all very well for the philosophers 
of the party, of course, they know how to prove that the change 
from baking beans in a hole in the ground to the Bostoneese 
mode of production is enough to convince any progressive man 
that there are as many gods as there are bean bakers. 

And then delegate Hunter's trick was so dramatically con- 
vincing! A whole lot of delegates wanted to practice the art. 
For when the prospective platform had been flashed out of his 
pocket with the printed-fact which told the lie set firmly therein, 
the soap-box orators had been taught just what to say and just 
what to do on many prospective occasions. What if irreligion 
does lie as the foundation of the movement ; what if all the great 
international leaders from all over the world way back to the 
days of Marx and Engels are materialists! "Here is the declara- 
tion of socialist principles" adopted at their last National con- 
vention: The Plank reads as follows: 



The Materialistic Doctrine of Socialism. 17 

"The Socialist Party is primarily an economic and political 
movement. It is not concerned with matters of religious belief. ' ' 

What if every writer — Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lafargue, 
Plechanoff, Bax, Hyndman, Bebel, Liebknecht — in the list of 
authorities given just up to date by The Call, on March 13, 191 1. 
insists that the socialist movement is a fatalistic evolution from 
a mere "mode of motion," no one can deny the fact that the 
Socialist Party announces in its latest national platform that 
"It is not concerned with matters of religious belief. " 

So! truly, only as it is concerned with the propagation of 
irreligious belief. 



Origin and Ethics of Socialism Opposed to 
Christianity. 

"I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and 
the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal 
frame is without a mind. It is true that a little philos- 
ophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in 
philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; 
for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes 
scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no 
further ; but when it beholdeth the chain of them con- 
federate and linked together, it must needs fly to Provi- 
dence and Deity." 

— Lord Bacon. 

IT has become quite the "rage" with the third rate literati to 
float their intellectual wares on the radical market by the 
use of the catch penny term socialism on the title page. That 
socialism should stand for any fanciful notion of a superior 
order which may be airily builded up in the noddle of an author 
is, after all, quite consistent with the quality of disorder which 
really lies at the bottom of its fatalistic doctrine. Mrs. Freemont 
Older, in "The Socialist and the Prince," dubs her hero, Dennis 
Kearny, the anti-Chinese agitator, a socialist. Such writing 
adds greatly to the socialist strength politically; while the 
general confusion thus created leads not only to innocent 
misrepresentation, but it also encourages duplicity of conduct 
in the interest of "spreading the cause. " 

The Owenites of England were the first to use the terms 
socialist and socialism in the work of organizing their coopera- 
tive schemes. Robert Owen, the founder, is accredited 
by many writers as having coined them about the year 1830. 

In the early and middle part of the last century, the fol- 
lowers of Fourier, St. Simon and others who worked for the 
establishment of their " Utopias of freedom" were also known 
as socialists. 

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the days of '48, at 
the behest of the Communist League wrote the "Manifesto" 



Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 19 

which strictly marks the beginning of the movement which 
to-day is known as modern socialism. Speaking of this docu- 
ment the Socialist Labor Party, voicing the sentiment of so- 
cialists the world over, says : 

"At a congress of the League, held in London in November, 1847, 
Marx and Engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a com- 
plete theoretical and practical program for the party. This program 
was called the Manifesto of the Communist Party. And the Communist 
Manifesto, as it is now more generally known, may be said to be the 
basis on which modern scientific socialism has built its world-wide struc- 
ture," 

The first word on the title page of this document, Com- 
munist (which is still maintained), was used to distinguish 
the "Internationals" from the movements of Owen, Fourier, 
St. Simon and others. 

With the disintegration of these Utopian schemes and 
the development of the organization headed by Marx and En- 
gels, the word socialism became identified with the latter; 
as belonging generically and historically to that body of men 
who are organized nationally and federated internationally. 
Within the United States socialists are organized under the 
several names of Socialist Party, Socialist Labor Party and 
Social Democratic Party. 

That socialism bears no kinship with Christianity the 
merest glance at the "Communist Manifesto" will show, for 
that which has already "succumbed" to rationalism has but a 
fancied existence — "the ignorant superstition of religion" 
lingers only in irrational heads. 

"When the ancient world was in its last throes the ancient religions 
were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in 
the eighteenth century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought it> 
death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of 
religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the 
sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge." ("Com- 
munist Manifesto.") 

In the interest of human progress the ground must be 
cleared of the underbrush of confusion which hides socialism 
proper from the view of many who are under its godless in- 



20 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

fluence. Its irreligious basis must be exposed; its sophistry and 
duplicity must be uncovered that those who are enthusiastically 
looking at its glittering pictures may see the hydra headed mon- 
ster so glowingly clothed which, given the power, would throw 
civilization into chaos. 

How often is the statement made, by those new converts 
whose ardor outstrips their knowledge, that socialism is identi- 
cal with Christianity. In " green" socialist papers and in "Litera- 
ture for beginners" one may frequently read the statement that 
"the ethics of Christianity and socialism are identical." In- 
vestigation will conclusively prove that the ethics of social- 
ism is as directly opposite to the ethics of Christianity as the 
positive is from the negative pole of human activity. Inves- 
tigation will also prove that once one is thoroughly inoculated 
with the virus of socialist ethics it will be as difficult to get out 
of the slime of its ethical fluid into the clear blue light of religious 
ethics as it is for a fly to get out of a pan of milk into the free 
air. 

Ernest Belfort Bax, in "The Ethics of Socialism," frankly 
gives the correct socialist position : 

"One word on that singular hybrid, the 'Christian Socialist.' . . . 
The association of Christianism with any form of socialism is a mystery, 
rivalling the mysterious combination of ethical and other contradictions 
in the Christian divinity himself. 

"It is difficult to divine the motive for thus preserving a name which, 
confessedly, in its ordinary meaning, is not only alien but hostile to the 
doctrine of socialism. 

"If by Christianity be meant the body of dogma usually connoted 
by the word, it will probably be conceded by those to whom we refer 
that it is in hostility to progress. If on the other hand, this be not 
meant, but merely the ethical principles Christianity is supposed to 
embody, then, even if these principles were distinctly and exclusively 
Christian, which they are not, we challenge them to show this connec- 
tion or even their compatibility with socialism. If, again, they fail in 
this, as fail they must, the whole matter is resolved into one of sentiment. 
And for the sake of retaining a catchword, for such it is, and no more, 
under these circumstances, they would compromise principles, and throw 
a sop to the status quo in its most hypocritical form." 

We challenge those socialists who are using, ignorantly 
or willfully, the "Christian catchword" to accept the chal- 



Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 21 

lenge of Bax (who is undisputed authority within the socialist 
camp) to show the " compatibility" of socialist and Christian 
ethics. It were just as fitting to speak of Christian atheism as to 
speak of Christian socialism, in either case the two words swear 
at one another! Christianity connotes the individual relation- 
ship and moral responsibility of man to his Creator; the re- 
cognition of God's revelation to man in the person of Jesus 
Christ, which finds its material embodiment in the Christian 
church. Socialism denies the existence of God and His revelation 
and so consequently denies the moral responsibility of man to 
Him. Socialism declares the Christian religion to be a result 
of economic evolution; it predicts its annihilation upon the 
introduction of a "classless" society. 

Of course as the predication of a "classless" society is naivete 
itself, the Christian may indeed smile as he holds with firm 
belief to the promise that the "gates of hell" shall not prevail 
against Christ's church here on earth. 

Socialism denies the moral responsibility of the individual 
on the assumption that each person is a mere cell within the 
"social organism." Arguing thus against the individual soul, 
socialism is cock-sure that once the "social body" has perfected 
its form — once the tools of production are collectively owned — 
once the capitalist class is abolished — the individual being 
emancipated from class rule, for the first time in the history of 
the race free-will (a product of evolution, not a gift from God), 
shall become a fact in human life. Hence not until the "classless 
society" shall have arrived are men personally responsible for 
good conduct. Sins there are none. While crimes are com- 
mitted not by morally responsible men, for men are what the 
"social body" compels its warring classes to be. Its "mode of 
motion" is class antagonism. A little better sounding term 
than class hatred this, but all the same in meaning. 

In his leading editorial entitled "Universal Modern ism," 
Daniel De Leon, in socialist philosophy fast outrivaling Bax, 
shows the "amazing contradictions" to which Rev. Dr. Anna 
Howard Shaw subjects herself by preaching "out of the Bible" — 
either the Old or the New Testament — and at once advocating 
Suffrage. De Leon is right, there is nothing in the Bible to 
warrant Women's Suffrage. We shall, of course, assume thai 



- 

22 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

every one knows that suffrage is a cardinal doctrine of socialism. 
To quote : 

"Correctly did Auguste Comte point out that, whereas in lower 
biages of life, evolution takes place regardless and without the knowledge 
and assistance of the living body, in the upper, or Man, stage of life, 
evolution is materially aided by Man himself. The conditions under 
which lower life exists are transformed by themselves ; at the Man stage 
he has much, though not everything, to say in the evolution of the con- 
ditions in which he lives. . . . However high the stage of life, still 
there clings to it some of the features of the lower. It pushes, true 
enough ; but is itself pushed by forces it knows not of, by forces it is so 
little aware of that, as in the instance of the Suffragist, Rev. Dr. Anna 
Howard Shaw, it is not infrequently driven to amazing contradictions. 

"It is not the Roman Catholic Church alone that is in the throes of 
a Modernist upheaval. As in that church pious elements and its leading 
intellects, the 'Modernists,' are moving obedient to a resistless Evolu- 
tional Force, so everywhere else. Everywhere, the sensitive elements 
of society are on the move — blindly, for a spell, during which one part 
of their being clashes, at war with the other part ; presently open-eyed, 
when they become OXE with themselves. 

"Modernism is the feature of our century.". (Weekly People, 
March 25, 1911.) 

Precisely! Just what then, in a word, is Modernism? 
Most assuredly that system of philosophy which discards one 
half of the basis of reason by dealing with Processes while 
ignoring the identity (and so the origin) of what is evolving. 
Hence the First Cause is obscured and abandoned ; while second- 
ary principles are taxed not alone with working out their own 
mission but also with the impossible task of taking the place of 
first principles. Here is the very pivot of the quarrel between 
right-reason which necessarily finds God as the ultimate cause, 
and the wrong reasoning of the modernist, of whatsoever school. 
By asking how to the exclusion of what the modernist establishes 
an order of investigation not to be tolerated by a truly rational 
system of thought. 

Whether it be set down ''scientifically" or with crass 
frankness the conflict between the ethics of socialism and of 
Christianity is never absent from the words of the ■ 'class con- 
scious" members of the movement; and we submit that it were 
high time that Christians were as intellectually alert as their 
foes. 



Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 23 

The sometime -Reverend A. M. Stirton, former editor of 
The Wage-Slave, but now editor of Solidarity, a socialist weekly 
of New Castle, Pa., "insists" that "the propaganda of scien- 
tific socialism and the practice of the Christian ministry do 
not make a team: The Editor has tried it." There was a time 
when this gentleman thought otherwise as one may gather from 
his confession. We quote: 

"In the earlier days of his ministry the Editor thought he could be 
a socialist and a Methodist minister at the same time. His Presiding 
Elder was of other opinion: 

"'Your place is not in the Methodist ministry.' 

'"Why not ', don't I take good collections?' 

"'Yes, but you are a socialist.' 

"'To be sure, but what of that?' 

'"Being a socialist you account for the evil in the world in a different 
way than the church does and hence you seek a different remedy. The 
methods of socialism and the methods of the church have nothing in com- 
mon and in many vital respects are radically opposed, and to be logical 
you should quit one or the other.' 

" The Wage-Slave insists that the Presiding Elder was right. It is 
idle to deny it.'! (The Wage-Slave, June 26, 1909.) 

Again, precisely! Here the issue between Christian and 
materialistic ethics is brought before the bar of the Moral order. 
Socialism insists that the sum total of evil finds its origin in the 
exercise of economic power by one set of men over others. 
Hence the origin of evil lies in " man's inhumanity to man." 
Hence also evil is evolutionary in its nature, what is wrong 
becoming right according to circumstances and vice versa. 

Being caused by man's offenses against man, evil shall be- 
come extinct by a co-operative system of production which 
shall destroy the economic power of the capitalist. Universal 
wealth together with a "classless society" is relied upon to 
establish heaven on earth — the only one materialism knows i 
anything about. 

Christian ethics lays down the principle of right-reason; 
it goes behind secondary causes to the original cause. God 
does not, indeed, create evil, that is man's work. The first cause 
of evil, the ultimate origin of evil lies in the fact of man's dis- 
obedience to God's will that man shall love Him first above all 



24 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

and serve Him always. Secondary evils are created by the 
individual refusal to perform the tasks assigned by Providence 
— "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." So it is that 
Christian ethics stands fast by free-will and moral responsibility 
while materialist ethics staying its process of thought this side 
of the last step in logic thus leaves undiscovered the basis of 
right-reason. Consequently individual responsibility is con- 
ceived as a product of evolution — a progressively better form — 
with mechanical motion as its basic determinant. On the 
subject of which Bax is master, kindly permit him to speak: 

"According to Christianity and the ethics or religion of introspection 
generally, regeneration must come from within, must begin in the heart 
and mind of the individual. The ethic and religion of modern socialism, 
on the contrary, look for regeneration from without, from material con- 
ditions and a higher social life. The ethic and religion of socialism 
seek not the ideal society through the ideal individual, but conversely 
the ideal individual through the ideal society.'' ("Ethics of Socialism," 
page 19.) 

This is plain enough! Bread and butter — a plenty of 
it for society will make the individual man moral ! 

Mary E. Marcy, one of the editors of the International 
Socialist Review, in her story "Out of the Dumps" puts the ethics 
of socialism into the vernacular: "Take keer of the stummiks, 
sez I, and the morals'll take keer o 'themselves." 

Whether we quote from De Leon on March 29, 19 11 or from 
Dr. Aveling who played an important role during many years 
from the inception of the movement, the materialist doctrine 
is never absent as the ethical basis of socialism. 

Edward B. Aveling was professor of chemistry and physi- 
ology at New College, London, England. He was also professor 
of comparative anatomy at the London Hospital. A member of 
the London School Board in 1882, vice-president of the National 
Secular Society, from which he was forced to resign. His 
chief literary works are, "Student's Marx," "Student's Darwin," 
"Heackel's Pedigree of Man," and the translation of "Marx's 
Capital," vol. 1, also the translation of Engels' "Socialism." 

Perhaps after all Dr. Aveling was best known to the 
rank and file as the "free husband" of Karl Marx's daughter 
who met such a tragic death — a fitting consummation of their 



Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 25 

utter defiance of religious and moral obligation within the 
family sphere. 

Dr. Aveling writes, in To-Day, a socialist magazine: 

"Whether anything is done or nothing is done, little that is of any 
real or lasting value can be done until men and women fairly face the fact 
that the terrible condition of our poor is due, as are so many other ills, to 
the two curses of our country and time. These two curses are Capitalism 
and Christianity. 

"Mr. Headlam is sorry I do 'not think it worth while to expose 
the evils of capitalism. I do. But I know that others are at this good 
work, and I know that Christianity and Capitalism support, and are 
supported by, each other. They are Siamese twins. They live, they 
die together. A blow at one, is a blow at both. Christianity is a pander 
to Capitalism, bringing to it for prey the fair virgin called Labor, beguiled 
by the hope of a beatific hereafter. 

"We can scarcely wonder that certain impetuously honest natures 
among the socialists exclaim against the admission of priests to the 
party. The priest in this respect is in the same position as the capitalist. 
He is a monopolist. A capitalist can join the socialist party as an in- 
dividual, and will be welcomed as a man. But he must denounce even 
if he cannot renounce, his capitalism. The priest also is admissible to 
our human, earthly, natural society as an individual, and is welcome 
as a man, but he must denounce his priesthood and all its pretentions 
to relation with the supernatural. And whilst we cannot fairly, or for 
the time wisely ask the capitalist to give up his sources of income, and 
therefore of work for the good cause, we can ask the priest to do this. 
There are other means of livelihood more lucrative in some cases, and 
more honest in all. 

" . . . In Christianity we see not only a supporter of the greatest 
of social evils, but a system that by its fundamental principles vitiates 
human thoughts, and distracts the attention of mankind from the natural 
and actual. Against these therefore we fight. So indissoluble are these 
two, so absolutely does the happiness of the future race depend on their 
downfall, that we re-echo with a modification the cry of Voltaire, 'Ecra- 
sons Vinf&me.' \l 

How well the demands of socialist philosophy upon the 
" priests" are complied with may be noted by the sometime 
Christian ministers who take leading parts in party propaganda. 
The reverend becomes in short order conspicuously absent from 
their names. We set down only a few who come up to mind 
without effort: Strickland, Stirton, Wentworth, Gaylord. 
B reckon, Thompson, Ben tall. 



26 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

There is yet better testimony to the fact that Christian 
practices and sentiments are not tolerated from powerful 
advocates of the movement, which shall be taken from the 
brother of the three-times national standard bearer — Eugene V. 
Debs. Only two Roman Catholic priests have taken part in the 
socialist movement of this country. One is dead, and Father 
Hagerty has somehow faded away. Writing of the late Father 
Thomas McGrady, in the Appeal to Reason, Jan. n, 1908, 
Theodore Debs extolled him: 

"He was the personification of honor and the soul of truth. I once 
saw him refuse to shake the hand of a socialist who had maligned 
him. . . . 

"No man, I believe, ever came into the socialist movement with a 
more unselfish, sincere desire to serve it. He was literally filled and 
overflowing with enthusiasm. It is sad to relate that this was quenched 
by socialists, but nevertheless such is the fact, and I happen to know 
it of my own knowledge. Comrade McGrady made but few references 
to the men who so vindictively pursued him, but these thrusts they made 
at his personal integrity, and the suspicion with which their charges and 
insinuations surrounded him, pierced him to the heart and literally sent 
him to his grave. 

"He fell in the happiest period of his life, and should have lived 
many years to serve the party, as he was so splendidly fitted to do, but 
like Caesar, he was struck down in the house of his friends. 

"Think of the suffering of this great heart, the abuse poured upon 
him by men who were known as his comrades! Little wonder that his 
heart bled, and at last broke of pain and sorrow. 

"When McGrady, strong, yet gentle as a child, realized the envy, 
the jealousy and ingratitude of the very ones in whose comradship he 
sought refuge from the church he had fled from, it shocked his sensibili- 
ties and his oak-like form, shattered as if by lightning, bowed in grief to 
rise no more. 

"As true to his convictions as any man on earth was Thomas McGrady. 
He had the highest order of courage, too. He did not fear the capitalist 
enemy. That enemy he would have fought to the last ditch and over 
the last precipice in the service of the oppressed, but his whole nature 
revolted against striking back at his comrades, and controlled by this 
spirit he suffered in silence until his great heart was stilled forever." 

We are quite sure that not even Mr. Debs himself is aware 
of the depth of malice in this "Turk who will tolerate nobody 
near his throne." Only the strictly "class conscious" may 
gather about the "point of the revolution," for the sufficient 



Origin of Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 27 

reason that socialist philosophy is a fixed and rigid quality, 
unmixed with Christian mercy or courtesy. However fluid it 
may appear to enthusiastic new-comers sooner or later those 
who aspire to national leadership will accept the materialist 
basis of history as explaining the nature of man (as perhaps the 
Rev. E. E. Carr is now doing in his fight to rid the party head- 
quarters from the stigma of free-love) or they will die in their 
agony; or better still live through the painful ordeal, well 
equipped with an intimate knowledge of its every movement, to 
glory in the defense of our Lord and our God. 

How illy grounded is the faint iteration of well meaning 
converts that socialism and Christianity are identical ethically 
in face of the many stout assertions of acknowledged inter- 
national leaders. James Leatham says : 

"What we have to do on behalf of the ethics of the Social- Democratic 
State is to separate them from precepts enjoining duty to God and from 
any other commands for which there is no social and secular warrant." 
("Socialism and Character," page 43.) 

Here we present an outspoken editorial by John Spargo from 
The Comrade (New York, May, 1903). 

"Let us turn our eyes from what we find satisfaction in seeing, to 
ourselves. Candor compels the admission that the pallor of fear and the 
paralysis of its impotency are upon us. We have lost the courage of 
our faith, if indeed, we ever had it to lose. 

"Take, for example, the question of ethics. How often do we see 
quoted in our own press, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that familiar 
fallacy that 'the ethics of Christianity and socialism are identical.' It is 
not true; we do not ourselves, in most cases, believe it. We repeat it 
because it appeals to the slave-mind of the world. It is easier so to 
act, than to affirm, what in our very souls we feel to be true, that socialism 
as an ethical interpretation of life is far removed from Christianity, and 
of infinitely greater beauty and worth. The ethics of Christianity, like 
its practices, are characterized by a monstrous disregard of the common 
life. Christianity and tyranny are and for ages have been firmly allied. 
The ethical teaching of Jesus even was not socialism; even his pure, 
tweet spirit had no clear concept of that great common-lile standard 
which the race was destined to reach through centuries of struggle and 
pain. But the system which bears His name never knew the ethical 
teaching of Jesus. There is no wrong, however terrible, which has not 
been justified by Christianity; no movement for human liberty which 
has not been opposed by it. Its very basis is a lie and a denial pf the 



28 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

basic principle of socialism. Its own infidelity to the common life of the 
world sets it at the antithesis of socialism. 

"We must be careful to avoid cramping ourselves and truncating our 
faith to suit the Christian measure. Christianity is not big enough, nor 
pure enough, nor noble enough, to measure our great world-faith. To 
identify socialism with Christianity we must first 'Christianize' it; we 
must abandon its highest and loveliest meanings. Socialism Christianized 
would be socialism emasculated and destroyed. 

"To appeal to the slave-mind of the world, to play upon its weakness 
and its bondage, either by the use of such ill-founded judgments as the one 
quoted to support our case, or of the sacerdotal vestments and titular 
prestige of ecclesiasticism , is to appeal to , and by the appeal to confirm , the 
ignorant prejudices with which priestcraft has always held the mass- 
mind in bondage. It is at once a self-betrayal, and a betrayal to those 
from whom we appeal. Socialism needs no religion to support it, and if 
it did it could not receive support from outworn dogmatic Christianity. 
When we have the courage to take hold of it, socialism will become for 
each of us a religion immeasurably grander and truer than what we call 
religion to-day." 

No, generally speaking, it is not that socialists "have lost 
the courage of their faith" when they assure the illy informed 
public that the ethics of socialism and Christianity are identical, 
but rather is it a convenient catch-word, an entering wedge to 
split men from their religious associations and convictions. 
With the official Proceedings of the National Convention of the 
Socialist Party (1908) extant, it were mere impudence for its 
members to insist upon the identity of Christian and socialist 
ethics. "You lie, you villian you lie," is the plain fact of the 
matter when judged by Christian standards. But yet, we would 
give the devil his due, since this lie becomes not merely an 
expedient of propaganda but also a deeply "scientific" method 
of procedure by the accredited reasoning of delegate Untermann, 
lesser socialists than national leaders may be excused, we sup- 
pose, if their moral code becomes an immoral code. Especially, 
as the Ten Commandments have so long been out of date in 
socialist circles that mental confusion has become chronic in 
plain matters of right and wrong. 

Since '48 is a long time to ingrain a Godless view of life. 
With the "Communist Manifesto," the "most remarkable 
pamphlet ever written," and "Capital" as the "Bible of the 



Origin op Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 29 

working Class," there was indeed "the beginning of an epoch" 
with reason fled to brutish feasts. 

"Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a socialist tinge. 
Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriages, 
against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these charity and 
poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother 
Church ? Christian socialism is but the Holy Water with which the priest 
consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrats." ("Communist 
Manifesto.") 

Writing under the caption Marxism and Ethics for Wilshire's 
Magazine (Nov. 1905) Robert Rives La Monte sets plainly forth 
the creed of socialism. From the dogma that the dominant 
class ever creates the kind of god serviceable in holding the 
subject class in hand, Mr. La Monte passes logically on to the 
notion that the capitalist class of to-day, to the extent of its 
power, holds over the "wage-slaves" the so-called morals — The 
Ten Commandments — for reasons of economic gain. We quote : 

"... morality is, in its very essence, a class institution — a set of rules 
of conduct enforced or inculcated for the benefit of a class. Hence to 
speak of the morality of the future when one refers to the classless society 
to which socialists look forward, is the height or the depth of absurdity. 
Under socialism there will be no morality." 

Two years later in "Socialism: Positive and Negative," 
(page 57) Mr. Robert Rives La Monte puts his creed in verse: 

"What are 'wrong', 'right', 'vice', 'virtue', 'bad' and 'good'? 

Mere whips to scourge the backs that naked fear 

The burden of the world — bent backs that dare 

Not rise erect, defy the tyrant, 'Should', 

And freely, boldly do the things they would. 

In living's joy they rarely have a share ; 

They look beyond the grave, and hope that there 

They'll be repaid, poor fools, for being good. 

"To serve thy master, that is virtue, Slave; 
To do thy will, enjoy sweet life, is vice. 
Poor duty ridden serf, rebel, forget 
Thy master-taught morality ; be brave 
Enough to make this earth a Paradise 
Wheron the Sun of Joy shall never set!" 



30 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

It were fitting that the philosopher per se of the movement 
should have the last word to say in proof that from the ethics 
of socialism no Christian can find endorsement. At the inter- 
national congress at The Hague, in 1872, at which Joseph 
Deitzgen was a delegate, Karl Marx introducing him to the 
assembled delegates used these words : "Here is our philosopher. ' ' 
What the philosopher of the socialist movement has to say the 
world may learn from The Religion of Social Democracy, the first 
of "six sermons" by Joseph Deitzgen : 

"Christianity was recently qualified as the religion of servility. 
This seems to me a very apt qualification. 

"Indeed, all religion is servile, but Christianity is the most servile 
of the servile. Let us take the next best Christian saying we meet with 
on the road. On my way there stands a cross with inscription: 'Mercy, 
gracious Jesus! Holy Maria, pray for us!' Here we have the inordinate 
humility of Christianity in all its wretchedness. For those who build 
all their hope on mercy are wretched creatures, indeed. Those who start 
out in life with the belief in an Almighty God, and prostrate themselves 
before the destinies and forces of nature, and in their piteous feeling of 
impotency moan for mercy, are anything but efficient members of modern 
society. When we see that modern Christians act differently, that they 
brave the storm and courageously face danger, that they actively strive 
to remove calamity, it is only because of their defection from Christianity. 
Though they continue to keep their name, their song-book and their 
anxieties, they are in their doings and dealings perfect anti -Christians. 
We non-religious social-democrats must be fully conscious of this position. 
We want to be consciously and deliberately, in theory and practice, the 
energetic opponents of that sheepish and godly humility." ("Philosophical 
Essays," Chicago Kerr Co., 1906) 

Is not this unspeakably perverse ! First to mistake Christian 
recognition of our utter dependence upon God's mercy and our 
appeal to the Blessed Mother for aid in the battle of life for 
slavish servility and then to claim as "anti-Christs" all those 
who for the love of Christ are doing brave deeds for the good of 
their fellowmen? Yet in the art of outrage Marx is quite the 
master of his philosophic master, Deitzgen, for when one is 
off one's guard Marx can fling a mortal insult to strike both God 
and man. From page 13 of " Capital" when treating soberly of 
economics we quote this example of intellectual degeneracy : 

"The fact that it is value is made manifest by its equality with the 
coat, just as the sheep's nature of a Christian is shown in his resemblance 
to the Lamb of God." 



Origin op Socialism Opposed to Christianity. 31 

We submit, that it were idle to deny that for want of logical 
thinking socialist ranks are recruited and Christian ranks are 
depleted. Well instructed, the human mind rests securely 
upon a basis of right-reason, and right reason necessarily finds 
its first cause in God and its final cause in God. 



Socialism International. 

" Force should be right ; or rather, right and wrong, 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then everything includes itself in power, 
Power into will, will into appetite ; 
And appetite an universal wolf, 
So doubly seconded with will and power, 
Must make perforce, an universal prey, 
And last eat up himself. Great Agememnon. 
This chaos when degree is suffocate follows the choking.' 5 
(Troiius and Cressida, Act i, Scene 3.) 

AS to whether socialism should be stayed, beaten flat to the 
earth and scattered to the four winds of the heavens as 
subversive of right-reason, civil order and religious liberty, or 
whether this force gathering under the red flag should be ac- 
cepted as leading the American nation inevitably on to a higher 
civilization, there are opposite convictions, — but there is no 
mistaking the proofs that socialism is international in its prin- 
ciples and in its organization. 

It were, indeed, imperative to a right understanding of its 
propaganda to realize that each of its many national divisions 
pays allegiance to the self-same system of thought. That each 
several local, great and small, throughout our country, and a 
multitude of auxiliary organizations, all march together deter- 
mined upon the conquest of "the present order." Also that the 
phrase present system — present order — Capitalism — wage slavery 
— etc., etc., stands in place of extant civilization, whatever the 
form of government, and especially of Christian civilization. 

The party platform of each several country lays down such 
planks as its leaders deem the best means the time affords to 
reach the one aim and end. Set forth as many varieties as one 
will . . . "nothing that does not lead toward the overthrow 
of capitalism can be regarded as socialism or leading toward it," 
said Herman Simpson, Editor of The Call, addressing The Socialist 
Club in New York City, as reported in the issue of March 21, 
1911. 



Socialism International, 33 

The economic test, directly or indirectly, must show an 
assault upon private property — a man's right to own and operate 
wealth for profit. This being so, reforms within the spheres of 
domestic economy, civil economy, political economy and social 
economy may be advocated, not because they are proper sub- 
jects of socialism, but only for the reason that such advocacy 
may indirectly lead to an assault upon privalfe property. 

As this is the ground of very great confusion it were worthy 
of the most positive attention. We have no hesitation whatso- 
ever in affirming that the rank and file are gathered together 
because socialism is mistaken for this, that and whatnot reform. 
Yet the wolf decked out in sheep's clothing has the deadly snap 
of the wolf just the same. 

Again, socialism is not international for the one reason of 
its materialistic creed; it has, too, made experience which sus- 
tains its theoretical belief. The defeat of the Communards 
in their attempt to establish socialism in France, furnished the 
experience which convinced socialists of the necessity of inter- 
national organization. It is a matter of common conviction, with 
them, that the capitalist governments of Europe and America 
would not permit the setting up of a socialist society by the work- 
ing class of any nation so long as the united military power of 
the remaining capitalist nations retain the power to overthrow it. 
Hence the necessity of establishing a co-operative common- 
wealth which shall include the civilized world. Hence, also, 
the shibboleth "Workmen of all countries unite, you have nothing 
to lose but your chains and a whole world to gain." 

As only the comparatively few are versed in their creed, 
this international comradeship is largely builded upon sentiments 
of pity for the downtrodden. Such sentiments are freely in- 
dulged by leaders who are keenly aware, for instance, that Pope 
Leo XIII was no socialist, though they find it a serviceable myth 
with which to make propaganda amongst ambitious Catholic 
workmen of a too worldly type. So it is that doctrinal error is 
winked at in men of petty leadership. This is the policy which 
breeds that confusion, which flatters the novice into thinking 
that socialism is now or shall be that thing which he wants it 
to be. But as we have said, no man of large faculty for leader- 
ship is permitted long to indulge this fancy. Otherwise the 



34 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

"point of the revolution" were in danger, for a bold leader could 
carry a division of the army over to any reformer's camp. 

While this intellectual confusion is, in fact, the cover under 
which the movement spreads its propaganda, at the same time 
it gives to it the appearance of embracing many kinds of 
doctrine, but this js officially repudiated. 

"There is no such thing as European socialism or American socialism. 
There is only one kind of socialism the world over — International Socialism , 
which means everywhere the same, among the socialists of Haverhill 
as well as among the socialists of a city of a similar size in Germany, 
France, Belgium or England." (The Haverhill Social Democrat, July 20, 
1910.) 

Likewise is the authoritative pronouncement of the latest 
party platform, (Chicago, 1908) we quote: 

"In the struggle for freedom the interests of all modern workers are 
identical. The struggle is not only national but international. It 
embraces the world and will be carried to ultimate victory by the united 
workers of the world.". 

The most powerful of its auxiliaries is equally outspoken as 
to its doctrinal unity with the Marxians. At the Christian 
Socialists' Conference at Asbury Park (1908) the delegates 
assembled acquiesced in this view: 

"The Christian Fellowship believes in, and advocates, socialism 
without any qualifying adjective whatever. It does not offer any special 
form of socialism distinctively Christian. The socialism it preaches 
differs in no way from that of the international socialist movement." 

Again : 

"A splendid opportunity is offered the Church of God. The time 
is ripe to realize our hope — universal brotherhood. . . . . A David has 
appeared in the form of socialism. We may yet discover that he is 
the Lord's anointed." 

There can be no doubt, once the origin, the doctrine and the 
intention of socialism is known, about the fact that those social- 
ists who sincerely believe in Christ and Him crucified have in 
this babel of tongues mistaken the voice of the anti-Christ for 
that of the Good Shepherd. The regime proposed is entirely 



Socialism International. 35 

consistent with the doctrine laid down, while both rest logically 
upon a basis of tin -reason, for materialist monism leaves no 
room whatever for the belief in Almighty God. However many 
breaks with logical thought the "Christian socialists" are guilty 
of, socialist leaders are under no delusion as to the nature of 
their movement ; that its unity is grounded in materialism they 
know. What they have not the good will to perceive is that 
materialism is a denial of right-reason. To quote : 

"There may be fifty-seven varieties or twice as many, of persons who 
call themselves socialists or are called so by others. But there is only one 
socialism that counts in the real world. . . . This socialism that 
counts, we call it international socialism ... we call it revolution- 
ary socialism, we call it proletarian socialism . . . we call it scientific 
socialism." (The Worker, April 28, 1906.) 

Mr. Morris Hillquit, perhaps the master politician of them 
all has this to say : 

"Altogether it is high time that the American public abandon the 
myth of the 'diverse meanings of socialism,' and the 'diverse kinds of 
socialism.' There is not and probably never was a theory and movement 
of more striking uniformity than the theory and movement of socialism. 
The International Socialist movement, with its thirty million adherents, 
and its organized parties in about twenty-five civilized countries in both 
hemispheres, is all based on the same Marxian program, and folio ws 
substantially the same methods of propaganda and action". {The 
Worker, March 23, 1907.) 

Upon the adoption of the "Communist Manifesto" in '48, 
socialism became the official doctrine of the International 
Workingmen's Association. After a quarter of a century 
reorganization took place : 

The International Socialist Congresses held since the dissolution of 
the International Workingmen's Association have been as follows : 1 . At 
Paris, 1889; at Brussels, 1891; at Zurich, 1893; at London, 1896; at 
Paris, 1900; at Amsterdam, 1904; at Stuttgart, 1907; at Copenhagen 
in 1910. 

"The International Congresses are considered of very great im- 
portance as bringing together socialists of all civilized countries and 
expressing the solidarity of the workers of the world, and in formulating 
their views on questions of worldwide interest.". 

The address of the secretary, Camille Huysmans. is Maison 
du Peuple. Brussels, Belgium. 



36 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

We may note in passing that history records the utter 
failure of the attempts to establish socialism in miniature. 
For it must be borne in mind that what socialism is organized 
to abolish, on the one hand, and what it is organized to set up, 
on the other, extends in scope far beyond even national bound- 
aries. Therefore, it is that local and national questions must 
not be mistaken for its objective point — for its ultimate end. 
It would abolish all existing institutions. It would set up a 
collective ownership of the means of production- — of Capital. 



Socialist Tactics, 



How much wood could a wood-chuck chuck 

If a wood-chuck could chuck wood? 

A wood-chuck would chuck just as much wood 

As a wood -chuck would chuck 

If a wood-chuck could chuck wood. 



SOCIALIST tactics have become well established. It is their 
policy to develop what a prominent leader has termed 
"socialist minds." The socialist begins upon his "subject" with 
"radical stuff" to "break the ice." He knows very well that 
the "stuff" which he puts out is not socialist argument, but it 
serves to wean the man from his beaten path by its attractive 
style, by its flashing darts, which hit almost anything that the 
"present-order-man" may have in mind. 

The Appeal to Reason, which has been dubbed "The 
Appeal to Imagination," has for years been declared to be 
"the best socialist paper to make recruits with," simply be- 
cause it did not put forth "scientific socialism." It commonly 
confounded socialism with Christianity; the referendum as 
socialism; it declared the governmental experiments of New 
Zealand to be socialism; the North Carolina Liquor Dispen- 
sary was socialism. In short, any popular measure that would 
stir up the imagination of men and attract them to the socialist 
movement was said to be socialism. For the purpose of develop- 
ing "socialist minds" The Appeal was always in demand. 
It even went so far as to hail the election of some populist and of 
some radical democratic mayors, governors and congressmen 
as "socialist victories." Some years ago the proprietor engaged 
a new editorial staff of "class conscious" socialists, men who 
advocate "the materialist basis of history," "economic de- 
terminism," atheism, anti-patriotism, free-love ctalm the name 
of "science." After all The Appeal is still an offender seemingly 



38 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

without even a socialist conscience. In nearly every issue of the 
other socialist papers published in the United States one may 
read articles of a "reform" character, which stray far and away 
from the measures which socialism really stands for — -that is, they 
are not revolutionary in sentiment nor in principle. 

This is necessary tactics. Otherwise, from the fact that 
socialists may not deal with "reform measures," the socialist 
party is obliged to refrain from participation in public affairs 
under the present "capitalist regime.'* Therefore, logically, 
until such time as it shall have captured all the offices, from the 
President of the United States down to the selectmen of a 
country town, and at one fell swoop turned the capitalist class, 
foot, horse and dragoons, out of political doors, it cannot take 
control of the ship of state and turn it into an "administration of 
things. ' ' This delimma has brought down upon the most devoted 
socialist heads the nickname of "impossibilists. " The Socialist 
Labor Party of the United States falls under this classification. 
It was at their national convention in 1900 that they threw down 
the "immediate demands" of their political program. The 
Socialist Labor Party will not tolerate "reformers" within its 
ranks, all must be "revolutionists." De Leon says "Scratch 
the back of a sentimentalist and you will find a crook." To 
centralize political power by the practical aid of "immediate 
demands" they dare not. It is truly the most "uncom- 
promising" division of the world movement. It has the severest 
logician at its head. It has the courage of its irrational con- 
victions; that is to say the basic principles of socialism logi- 
cally lead to fanaticism. Its membership grows "beautifully 
less." 

The socialist may hang on either one of the horns of his 
dilemma. He may preach that which he knows is not social- 
ism to gain converts. Or he may preach that which he knows 
to be in strict conformity to socialist principles and lose converts. 
The logical outcome in either case is that the party goes out of 
existence with its mission unfulfilled. On the one hand, it is 
whittled to a point and the point cut off, while on the other its 
bubble is blown so large that it bursts into nothingness. 



Socialist Tactics. 39 

Hence socialist tactics would make the establishment of their 
scheme impossible if their principles did not. render it so : - : 

"Gonzalo. ' ' " 

F the commonwealth I would by contraries 
Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic 
Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 
Letters should not be known : riches, poverty, 
And use of service, none; contract, succession, 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none : 
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil : 
No occupation ; all men idle, all ; 
And women too; but innocent and pure: 
No sovereignty : — 

Sebastian. Yet he would be king on't. 

Antonio. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the 
beginning. 

Gonzalo. 

All things in common nature should produce 
Without sweat or endeavor ; treason, felony, 
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, 
Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth, 
Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance, 
To feed my innocent people. 

Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects? 

Antonio. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves. 

Gonzalo. I would with such perfection govern, sir, to excel 
the golden age. 

Sebastian. Save his majesty! 

Antonio. Long live Gonzalo!'! 

("The Tempest," Act 2.) 

Just now in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the party leaders 
have proved their political ability to get control of the City 
government, their tactics in getting the vote and their tactics in 
manning the working departments of the government, together 
with their tactics in making city contracts are already bringing 
the socialist administration to grief. At the election on April 
4, 191 1, the socialist candidates suffered a total defeat. 

The tactics employed towards party members do not indeed 
prove the impossibility of their scheme, but they 60 show that 



4o Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

quality of degeneracy into which men fall who defy and deny 
moral responsibility. One may, for example, see an editorial 
declaring that its columns are open to free discussion on party 
affairs, by the party membership, while its editor is at the 
same time returning articles, of an impersonal character, open- 
ing up to view some one of its principles, or some one custom 
of its p'opaganda. "Free speech" and "freedom of the press" 
is accorded only to those who are on the "inside." Persons of 
some power who hold philosophies contrary to the accredited 
school; those who will not be partners to the advancement of 
party leaders, who hold and practice pernicious socialist phil- 
osophy — to such the "freedom of the press" is cut off, and, at 
best, their reputations are damned with faint praise. 

This Turk will bear no one near his throne. So soon as one 
with marked ability steps out of the beaten socialist path the 
"freedom of the press" and official power is used to attack one's 
character; it brands one as a traitor, coward and liar. Never, 
save in the notable case of Bernstein in Germany, has the 
subject-matter of a serious objector been debated. But we 
must not give over credit — Bernstein's matter was confined 
strictly to the technical economic field. 

A notorious case of tactics has just drawn to an end, with 
the conclusion that those who stand for- fair play and a decent 
regime are found to be the guilty parties. Some little time ago 
(May 19 10) free-love charges were preferred against the officials 
at the National headquarters in Chicago, by "Mother Jones" and 
others. 

In Dec. 1 9 10 Messrs. Carey of Massachusetts and Hillquit 
of New York reported the charges "too frivolous'J to be acted 
upon. 

The Christian Socialist (Jan. 26, 191 1) gives four of its 
eight pages to a rehearsal of the case. We quote: 

"We have seen those charges and are sure that they were suppressed 
BECAUSE THEY ARE SO VERY SERIOUS, not because they are 
frivolous. 

"They may be too serious to print on account of the women in- 
volved and the unspeakable condition of affairs in the national office 
which they declare. . . . But they were of such a nature as to 
require immediate action on the part of the N. E. C. Yet they were 
absolutely ignored and treated with contempt for seven long months." 



Socialist Tactics, 41 

The Editor with blood in his eye goes on to say: 

"Charges like these against officials supported by the socialist party 
cannot be suppressed nor ignored.'! 

As The Christian Socialist was under "deep conviction" in 
the Methodist sense, and because it could speak in the open 
through its own columns; and, too, because The Provoker, Chicago, 
a little sheet devoted to showing Who's Who and What's What 
in the Socialist Party, was "unmercifully roasting the officials who 
were white-washing the headquarters," "a new deal" was 
handed out to the party membership. "Mother Jones' " letter 
to Geo. H. Goebel, member of the National Executive Committee, 
was, too, a force to be reckoned with. We quote from The 
Provoker (March 23, 1 9 1 1 ) : 

" 'Mother Jones' was never afraid to meet any committee, and when 
you intimated such a thing you lied deliberately. ... As for Morgan, 
he is onto your game, and he will clean up the whole bunch of you. That 
is what you are afraid of. You know the rottenness of the movement 
cannot stand the light of day. You are a party to the secrecy, and you 
are as guilty as the rest.'! 

At length there was elected A Trial Committee, not merely 
for investigating the free-love charges against the National 
Office, indeed no, the important issue seemed to be the investiga- 
tion of "Comrades" Carr, and Morgan the editor of The Provoker, 
for demanding that the case should be tried, and fairly tried. 

It shall be seen that these "comrades" counted without their 
host, for neither their protests nor their appeals to the mem- 
bership at large availed. Evidently these editors have yet to 
learn what we learned so reluctantly some years since, that 
socialist tactics, like the spots of the leopard, are ingrain in its 
free-love hide. Editor Carr says: 

"We are not the accusers. But we did criticise the N. E. C, and * 
protest against its methods and we do so still, with even greater cause than 
before. . . . THE SUCCESS of the Socialist Party depends as much 
upon its HONESTY, FAIRNESS and CLEANNESS as upon its 
PROGRAM. DO NOT ALLOW THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST TO 
BE SANDBAGGED IN THE DARK AND DESTROYED BY 
SELF-CONSTITUTED SUPPRESSORS OF FREE SPEECH AND 
A FREE PRESS.'! 



42 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

After this appeal for fair play, which was vain, "That Weird 
May meeting" was recalled {Christian Socialist, Jan 26, 191 1) 
showing that the minority have no rights which the majority are 
bound to respect : 

"To prove how 'frivolous' these charges were considered to be, the 
N. E. C. EXCLUDED THE ACCUSERS and all visitors from the room 
and WENT INTO SECRET SESSION. Nay, innocent readers of the 
fairy stories contained in the National Bulletin, this secret session was not 
held to prevent ticklish spectators from laughing themselves to death over 
the FRIVOLITY of the charges, but because THEY WERE THE MOST 
SERIOUS CHARGES EVER PRESENTED TO ANY N. E. C. OF 
THE AMERICAN SOCIALIST PARTY. 

"And, while the ACCUSERS were all banished from the room, the 
ACCUSED, including the women, WERE PERMITTED TO REMAIN. 
And so the 'investigation' proceeded behind closed doors and in the pre- 
ence of the accused only! . . . The accusers ready and eager to 
testify REMAINED WITHIN EASY REACH OF THE COMMITTEE 
FOR A WEEK WITHOUT HAVING A CHANCE TO TESTIFY. 

"And all The Official Reports of The Case Were Left In the Hands Of 
The Accused.'^ 

In August in New York City (the usual place of meeting 
being Chicago) the charges were investigated: 

"BY hearing A Statement From The Accused In The Absence Of 
All The Accusing Witnesses, and Barnes was again cleared and the 
case was officially declared a 'closed incident.' I'. 

Still THE PROVOKER persisted in airing the demerits 
of this case, three times dismissed by the party officials as "a 
closed incident." At length as both patience and prudence had 
ceased to be a virtue with the Ovristian Socialist it opened its 
editorials with a broadside on Oct. 1st and 15 th, 19 10. 

"NOW WE ARE COMPELLED TO EXPOSE THE MISCONDUCT 
OF THE CASE, NOT ONLY FOR THE HONOR OF THE MOVE- 
MENT BUT ALSO FOR THE VERY LIFE OF THE CHRISTIAN 
SOCIALIST. The unjust and outrageous attacks on this paper, 
PRINTED IN THE OFFICIAL BULLETIN AND SENT TO EVERY 
BRANCH IN AMERICA, which utterly misrepresents the case, AND 
THE REFUSAL OF THE NATIONAL OFFICERS TO SEND OUR EDI- 
TORIALS WHICH THEY ATTACK ALONG WITH THEIR LETTERS 
TO DISPROVE THEIR CHARGES, compel us to print further explana- 
tions of the maladministration of our officials. IF THEY HAVE 



Socialist Tactics. 43 

MADE THE BARNES* CASE THEIR OWN they must stand the con- 
sequences. 

"And we venture to warn all those concerned that we have not fired 
our heaviest guns yet. . . . IF FREE-LOVERS ARE TO RECEIVE 
OFFICIAL PROTECTION, NO POWER ON EARTH CAN PRE- 
VENT OUR PROTEST REACHING FROM SEA TO SEA." 

This was truly brave talk ; but it was impotent, for the Rev. 
Edward E. Carr is on the wrong side of this world wide battle. 
Having cast its lines over to the control of the International 
Socialist movement by officially endorsing the Socialist Party 
in this country The Christian Socialist must perforce aid in the 
destruction of Christian Civilization, or putting itself under still 
"deeper conviction" flee the wickedness of the modern Sodom 
and Gomorah. No, although he were the bravest of brave men, 
his strength were idle against the force of the movement. The 
national tacticians have again, now for the fourth time, closed 
the incident with "honor" to the National office, and severe 
condemnation for the accusers and for those who bespoke fair- 
play. The Provoker is found to be a "publication largely for 
the dissemination of malice, slander, falsification and misinforma- 
tion. . . . The editor, Thomas J. Morgan, is engaged either in 
willful distortion of facts, or is temperamentally unable to 
appreciate them. ' ' While The Christian Socialist was condemned 
for its "scandalous" work: "showing a combination of willful 
lying and deliberate distortion of facts in Carr's editorials." 

On the other hand, The Socialist Party Official Bulletin 
(Feb. 191 1) finds the National Headquarters to be white. 

"We have taken especial pains to sift this matter thoroughly on 
account of the seriousness of the charge, and find that there is absolutely 
no basis for such a dastardly attack on the good names and characters 
of the comrades mentioned.'' 

Thus Socialist Tactics delivers the innocent over to punish- 
ment. 

It was the lack of "freedom of the press" which in part 
caused the break in the Socialist Labor Party of 1899. 
Incrimination and recrimination brought forth the present 
Socialist Party from the loins of the "split," also the Social 
Democratic Party of several of the States, The People, daily and 



44 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

weekly, is still the official organ of the Socialist Labor Party; 
while from the loins of The Worker, a weekly, there issued The 
Call, a daily, now (191 1) the leading paper of the Socialist 
Party. These sheets give constant proof of the tactics of the 
world-wide movement. That is to say, they condemn the 
" present order" by the standards, and in the language of 
Christianity; but by the standards of their own "science" they 
approve what they condemn. From these contradictions 
there flows an intolerance that out-Herods Herod. 

An underhanded article, which freely displays the methods 
employed to develop "socialist minds," was published in The 
Worker, March 16, 1902, which was signed by the New York 
State Committee of the Social Democratic Party. We quote: 

"Archbishop Corrigan and Bishop Quigley alike charge socialism 
with hostility to religion . ' . . these charges are unqualifiedly false, 
and we challenge their authors to quote one phrase from our party- 
platform that would in any way tend to support their accusations. 
They cannot do it, for socialism has no concern with religion." 

That the platform then and the platform of 1908 con- 
tains nothing much directly, openly, as to religion is true, but 
that the platform is merely the working political program is 
also true, whereas socialism is announced by all its doctrinaires 
as a "philosophy of life." Moreover as every platform in one 
way or another declares its allegiance to "International Socialism," 
clearly from prima facie evidence one must learn the principles 
of International Socialism if one would know the essential mean- 
ing of the platform. 

Would the New York State Committee refer one to its 
platform to learn the socialist attitude on money? No, most 
decidedly no ! The platforms of the Socialist Party, the Socialist 
Labor Party, and the Social Democratic Party are all dumb 
on the question of money. 

If one desires to learn the socialist attitude on money he 
must study the question as related to socialist literature, as 
related to socialist principles, the only authority in the matter. 
Now, it does not follow because the socialist platforms of our 
country do not contain one word on the subject of money that 
they have not a generally recognized attitude in regard to it. 



Socialist Tactics. 45 

Although Marx, in ''Capital" ably analyzes some of the func- 
tions of money, that is not the whole story, for money is a creature 
of commerce, just as political action is a creature of the organized 
movement. Now commerce without foundation save for pri- 
vate property, and but for private property money were a 
non-existent thing. 

No! not one word upon money in the socialist platform, 
but for all that socialism does concern itself with the question of 
value. "The abolition of the wages-system" — "The working- 
class are being robbed of their values" — "The full value of his 
product is demanded by the socialist," and dozens of like phrases 
assure one most positively that money is of much concern to 
socialism, since its chief attack is upon private capital. Just 
so it is its attack upon religion that is its chief philosophic concern, 
for its founders and its present promoters, who assuredly are 
not Christians, insist that socialism is a philosophy of life. But, 
of course, if the Socialist Party Platform were openly, in simple 
language, to proclaim its attack upon Christianity — Catholic 
and Protestant — its half a million votes would dwindle down to 
a small figure. 

Tactically anything is wrong that interferes with socialist 
propaganda, just as anything which interfered with Abe Ruef 's 
vicious schemes to mulct the city of The Golden Gate was wrong. 
And such criterion is strictly in conformity with the bad reason- 
ing that a preponderance of material force is the basic deter- 
minant in human action. 

Colonel Roosevelt's speech at the unveiling of the Underhill 
Monument, two or three years ago, was the occasion of a brilliant 
display of "double crossing," so dear to these comrades who 
misplace the order of right-reason — socialism is first, all things 
else after, with God and the Ten Commandments nowhere. 

Our ex-President had struck socialism a national blow. 
He had interfered with the progress of its propaganda by showing 
just what "certain" socialists hold out as the economic ideal. 
And its tacticians were quite equal to the occasion of vaulting 
into print, first, to prove by their platform what was not to be 
found therein; and, second, to prove by the book the very con- 
trary of what is set down by its authors. 



46 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

With iteration and reiteration Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes made 
out her case as to "our President's uninformed state." Indeed 
it was ignorance "utter" and black regarding socialism. This 
"ignorance" sunk to its lowest depth when our then President 
said there can be found "no grosser example of privilege than that 
set before us as an ideal by certain socialistic writers." (The 
Sun's report, July 12, 1908). What then is that "ideal?" We 
are not left in doubt. "The ideal that every man shall put into 
the common fund what he can— and should take out whatever he 
wanted." 

Do "certain" socialists hold out this ideal? If they do not 
Mrs. Pastor-Stokes' insistence that "If Mr. Roosevelt wishes 
to oppose socialism he must learn what socialism is" may not be 
over intense. Mrs. Stokes has kindly set down a list of three 
authors, if he will but read them the burden shall be lifted from 
off the should -be weary back; for Mr. Roosevelt is the "most 
ignorant man in the country" on the most "vital subject" be- 
fore the world. 

Mr. Kirkup's, "An Inquiry Into Socialism," Page 116, shall 
be first consulted : 

"Adherents of socialism who insist upon a theoretical just method 
totally misunderstand the condition of the problem. Should remunera- 
tion be equal? Should it be according to the reasonable needs of each? 
Should the principle of remuneration be one that takes both merit and 
reasonable needs into account? Should the workingman receive the 
full product of his labor? The last is plausible in appearance, but when 
examined is found to be void of meaning.' '. 

"Void of meaning!" Plainly such weight as Mr. Kirkup 
has in the socialist world, or elsewhere for that matter, is against 
Mrs. Stokes' declamation upon the crass state of Mr. Roosevelt's 
mind. 

Mr. John Spargo was proposed, in Mrs. Stokes' letter to The 
Sun, as the next best man to ease off the burden of "ignorance" 
from the back of the sometime "strenuous Teddy." What has 
Mr. Spargo to; say about "dividing up" after all the capital of 
this world, Timbuctoo included, shall have been confiscated, 



Socialist Tactics. 47 

perhaps, and set in operation for use and not for profit? We 
quote: • ....= ■..-■-■-.--• 

"It may "be freely admitted i; however, that the ideal to be aimed at 
ultimately- must be approximate equality of income.'' ("Socialism," 
page 253.) ; 

What a perverse trick for "the preponderence of economic 
force" to play upon Mrs. Stokes! That she should select two 
authorities who give plain testimony against her asseveration of 
Mr. Roosevelt's "utter ignorance" as to socialist ideals, while 
the third writer, Mr. Work, to whom appeal is made, sets up the 
principle that the largest pay should be given for the dirtiest 
tasks. (What's So and What Isn't, p. 55). 

The soloist was not without her chorus, Messrs. Phelps 
Stokes, Robert Hunter, W. W. Passage and a host of others, 
even the party papers, and we hesitate to obscure the lady 
leader by the presence of the great Gene himself, all joined their 
woman comrade in proudly pointing to the perfection of their 
platform as proof that the socialist ideal is not "equal pay for 
unequal work." 

Strange to relate, and yet not strange for these sick-sweet 
folks who are skilled in deriving "spiritual beauty" from cod in 
Boston, corn in the west and cotton or whatnot in the south. 
They point to proof in a document which if one shall search never 
so carefully one shall find never one word as to the principle of 
economic remuneration. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that 
tons of the Socialist Party Platform at that very time were in 
circulation, what was not in it was trumpted forth as the cure 
for the crassest of "uninformed states" of mind regarding the 
most "vital subject" before all this world. 

There were truly interesting speculations regarding this 
episode. Did it ever occur to their "comrades" that these 
national leaders were playing a desperate game with historic 
truth, in which all the facts in the case were against them? 
Probably not. Or to be as charitable as we may, were these 
leaders themselves under the hallucination that what it were for 
the nonce expedient to hold in their heads was down in cold type 
in their platform and in the books cited? Probably. Yet 
however true or false their conscious motives the action was 
tactically to the advantage of the movement, 



48 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

The psychological effect which was intended was secured. 
Socialists had spoken dramatically in the public press, their 
name and fame had been shed abroad, and socialist propaganda 
was advanced, not retarded thereby; for the careless element 
in the community does not think, it feels. And it acts as it feels 
instead of acting as it thinks it ought to act. Evidently the cure 
for carelessness — thoughtlessness — is the lesson of moral responsi- 
bility which Christianity teaches, but which socialism scouts. 

Economic confusion is truly bad enough, but more dangerous 
to our national life is the attack upon the basis of the family. 
That the family is a moral body is a well established Christian 
truth. Not so with the socialist creed ; the family has no other 
foundation than private property. Yet socialists prate about 
the sex immorality of to-day, for effect, it is "good" propaganda; 
and loudly inveigh against the breaking up of the workingman's 
home by the capitalist class, as though sex purity were condi- 
tioned upon plenty of bread and butter. Their tactics of meeting 
inquiry by turning the point of the questioner, and of meeting 
argument by shifting the ground of discussion came into vogue 
with the "Communist Manifesto, "and that document, "beyond all 
price valuable to sociological science," is still followed faithfully 
by the international movement. This is the voice of the Socialist 
Labor Party : — 

"The principles enunciated in the 'Manifesto' are as true to-day as 
they were fifty years ago, and it is upon these principles that the Class 
Conscious Proletariat of the United States is hammering its way to the 
Socialist Republic." 

Now, we quote from the "Manifesto" itself to show its tactics 
in approaching the question of the family, and, also, that we may 
set down its own words regarding the origin of the family. 

"Abolition of the family? Even the most radical flare up at this 
infamous proposal of the Communists. 

"On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family 
based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form 
this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things 
finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the 
proletarians, and in public prostitution. 

"The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its 
complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital." 



Socialist Tactics. 49 

"In the practical absence of the family" among the working- 
class! Here is false history, created in the support of false 
philosophy, which philosophy rests upon a false basis of reasoning. 
All of which is prefaced by the counterfeit of moral indignation. 
Perhaps the inquiry were pertinent : Where in the whole range 
of intellectual effort are perverse intentions and perverse reasoning 
so entangled together into perverse psychological effect? 

In making converts the point at issue is shunted off, to 
illustrate : 

Civilian: Is the "completely developed form" of the rich 
man's family unlike the working class family? 

Socialist: No! certainly not, for the capitalist mode of 
production fashions all institutions by its own inexorable force. 

Civilian: Then the family is doomed? 

Socialist : Yes, upon the overthrow of private property in 
capital the family will vanish. 

Civilian: Will socialism abolish the family? 

Socialist: Oh, no! It won't be necessary, it will of itself 
give place to free unions. 

Civilian: You say that all institutions religious, civil and 
economic are developed in conformity with the prevailing mode 
of industry? 

Socialist: Yes, under the law of economic determinism. 

Civilian : Then marriage is not a sacred institution ? 

Socialist: No, certainly not. It was introduced by the 
exploiting class for the protection of private property. 

Civilian: What, then, constitutes a socialist marriage? 

Socialist: Why, love, of course. Love is the only basis 
upon which may be built a permanent and enduring marriage. 

Civilian: Permanent! If the natural affection, to put it 
straight, if sex fondness ceases the marriage ceases, its basis 
being gone? 

Socialist : Precisely. 

Civilian: And the parties are then free to find other mates 
at their own pleasure and convenience ? 

Socialist: Oh yes! of course! — Socialism desires freedom 
from exploitation in all things. A free family, a free society 
may be found only on the other side of the revolution, together 
with economic freedom. 



50 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Civilian : But is not this free-love? Let me read this from 
the Social Democratic Herald (June 20, 1903) : 



'"Were the Social Democrats of Germany ever in favor of community 
of wives as Father Sherman and the National Economic League pamphlets 
claim?' asks an Illinois correspondent. 

"Simply, and plainly and emphatically, no! The very idea is absurd. 
Marx, in his 'Communist Manifesto,' written in 1848, touches on this 
calumny, and even takes the pains to explain how it naturally occurred to 
the bourgeois mind. Under capitalism everything is property, and wives 
are looked on by some as a species of possession. So when the capitalist 
mind conceived the error that socialists wanted to socialize ALL property, 
the idea readily sprang up that women, being also a sort of property, would 
have to be socialized! In other words, the believer in capitalism, with 
his usual stupidity, did not see that socialism seeks to make common 
property ONLY of that part of wealth that is used to create more wealth, 
and so supposed that such property as womankind was in danger. And 
to quote Marx again, the socialists would have no reason to 'introduce 
community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial!' 
See the point?' I 

Socialist: The point is . . . eh, the point is the stupidity 
of the capitalist mind. . . . For you see there would be no 
marriage in the present sense, in the bourgeois sense. It would 
be swept away along with all other capitalist institutions. 

Civilian : Yes, but the point which I see lies back upon the 
ground of marriage — back to the origin of the family. The 
origin of the family cannot be mere sex fondness which you affirm 
as its basis; nor can the family have been created as the mere 
prop to private property, for it is self-evident that the family- 
is the necessary unit in sustaining the human race. As the 
monogamic family is the lowest terms to which the race can be 
reduced, we must conclude that it is the one pure form of the 
many possible sex relationships. Therefore the very fact that 
sex immorality of all sorts has been extant through all the ages, 
but brings out the pure form of the family more distinctly, as 
an ideal, as a scientific design and as a practical historical fact. 

Socialist: Er, er — but, you know one's body is his own, he 
may do with it as he pleases. 

Civilian: Personal happiness is the right standard for 
human conduct, is that the socialist morality? 



Socialist Tactics. 51 

Socialist: Yes, you are right, there is no fixed basis for 
the so-called moral law. 

Civilian : I see, then, that the issue between socialism and 
the upholders, of what you term the present order on the question 
of the family is just this, to put the matter with brutal frankness, 
that the race may breed like rabbits if it so pleases, or it must 
maintain marriage as a sacrament to please God. 

Socialist : As there is no God to please, one is foolish not to 
please himself. 

Civilian: So, your philosophy — the materialist conception 
of history— rules out of question Almighty God and His will 
as our law? 

Socialist : Certainly ! That belief is but the ignorant 
superstition of the dark ages brought over into modern times. 
When the future society shall have perfected itself, the col- 
lective will shall inform the individual what the moral law is. 
Until then we socialists will do the best we can to propagate 
the socialist doctrine. Once we get hold of the political power 
we will abolish both ecclesiastical and civil marriage. Then we 
could conform to the truth and beauty of socialist ethics such as 
no man can command in his ordinary life. Do you see the point ? 

Civilian : Indeed I do ; I see the deformity and the blasphemy 
of it clearly, as the work of the devil. 

From the socialist camp there issues forth the few with 
fully developed "socialist minds;" with the brassiest of brazen 
impudence these comrades fit their words to the audiences 
addressed. Before the populace the attacks upon the sacred 
character of marriage are subtile, but none the less deadly. 
We cite from Boyce's Weekly (May 6, 1903) this example 
given by A. M. Simons. After going on with a graphically 
correct picture to show the stress under which thousands of our 
poor live, the sympathy thus developed is used as the emotional 
sea upon which to set afloat his damnable suggestions, namely, 
that homes are disrupted, primarily by economic causes, when 
the truth is that moral disorder is the deadly foe of the home. 
We quote : 

"These are the 'homes' that it is alleged socialism would destroy. 
I fear that we must plead guilty to much of the indictment, for to declare 
for the preservation of such conditions would be to make the idea of social' 



52 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

ism a hideous nightmare to all thinking men and women. Socialism will 
undoubtedly return the father and mother to the family circle, permit the 
selection and maintenance of a permanent place of residence, shut the 
woman and child from the factory, and the factory from the home. It 
will do away with the army of the underpaid, abolish at once the prostitute, 
the tramp and the parasite, and secure the entire product to those who 
produce it, and thus make possible all that humanity has learned to love 
in the word HOME." 

No, Mr. Simons, these are not the homes that "it is alleged 
socialism would destroy." You have but pictured the poverty 
which woefully abides in American homes, while you have 
not pictured the plenty, the luxury, which abides in a large 
number of American homes. Now, it is not feared that you 
will destroy the poverty, the plenty nor the luxury even, of Ameri- 
can homes. The "fear" relates not to the material substance, 
scant or bountiful, necessary to maintain a home. But, Sir, the 
"fear" is, and justly too, that socialism would break the natural 
tie, the human tie, the sacred tie, the tie which binds the father, 
the mother, the child, in one family while life lasts. The "fear" 
is natural, it is wholesome because socialist principles strike at the 
very root of the home — at the marriage system. And no amount 
of sophistical writing shall be allowed to pass current as argument 
in the protection of socialists against the consequences of their 
philosophy which, if practiced, would destroy the home, for it 
would break the marriage bond. Lashing the "capitalist system' ' 
is not sufficient to betray your fell purpose. Kindly play the 
part of a brave man and out with your convictions as to the origin, 
the development, and the future state of the family. Then 
one will be enabled to see that the future home shall be, though 
never so richly furnished, a shed to shelter such human animals 
as "choose" because of "sex fondness" to herd for the night 
together. 

Mr. Robert Hunter sets another sample of "double crossing" 
— a manner peculiar to the blind in leading the blind. 



Socialist Tactics. 53 



Will Socialism Destroy the Home? 

(Social Democratic Herald, Nov. 19, 19 10.) 

"It is sometimes said that socialism will destroy the home, and when 
I hear it said I wonder what kind of homes? 

Will it destroy the homes of the merry widows of Reno, Nevada? 

Will it destroy the homes of the young American girls who have 
married dissolute foreign noblemen? 

Will it destroy the hovels and insanitary, overcrowded tenements in 
which the poor are to-day herded like cattle ? 

Will it destroy the homes of the mothers who rise at dawn to leave 
for the factory ? 

Will it destroy the homes of sick fathers and anxious wives and hun- 
gry, fretting babies? 

Will it destroy the homes of that multitude of women who have 
married, not for love but for support?" 

After some false history is cited to discredit the Church, Mr. 
Hunter sets down an assertion which he miscalls a fact and pro- 
ceeds, illogically, with some pitiful conditions which justly 
enlist the sympathy of every right-minded person, only to go 
abroad again for the "data" by which to renew his attack upon 
Christianity. 

Not the greed and the lust of mankind — of the rich and the 
poor — is to blame for the ills of life: "But Capitalism," that 
impersonal economic machine which men, sane men, know as 
commerce, that it is which has both the making and the care of 
what we call the morals of the race. 

However, Mr. Hunter has a cure, he holds out filth to cure 
filth: 

''Prostitution can never be done away with so long as capitalism lasts. 
The non-socialist will not understand that assertion and I shall not now 
try to prove it. 

"But if by chance, reader, you should sometimes be of heavy heart 
because so many thousands of wretched women are doomed to this life, 
and would like to know if there is any solution to this problem, then I ask 
you to read BEBEL'S 'WOMAN.' " (The Chicago Daily Socialist, Sept, 10. 
1909.) 



54 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

So, free-love shall be the cure for prostitution ! Certainly, 
there is a difference. Engels, in "The Origin of the Family," 
makes out prostitution to be more desirable-than marriage, which, 
of course, is thus utterly discredited, for there should be no sale 
of sexual intercourse. While Kautsky defends the "freedom 
of the sexes" on moral ground. Yet tactically either free-love 
or marriage is socialism, whichever will advance its propaganda 
for the nonce. 

There has been no change, neither in its principles nor in its 
tactics since 1848 when the form of socialist reasoning was locked, 
and the model for its tactics was displayed. The "Communist 
Manifesto" was then and it is now the inspiration of the authorita- 
tive writers and managers within the socialist world. Speaking 
at the Commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death 
of Karl Marx, the editor of the leading socialist daily of this 
country, Mr. Algernon Lee, voiced the general sentiment on Marx, 
The Revolutionist. 

"Karl Marx was the scientific analyst of the revolution : he studied 
the laws of its development as he worked in it . The ' Communist Manifesto , ' 
the work of Marx and Engels, is as much the manifesto of the socialist 
party of the world in 1909 as it was of the Communist party in 1848." 

Precisely ! All the socialists of all this world use the same 
negative and sophistical style of reasoning. By which means 
the thought and the hope of undisciplined minds and hearts are 
turned from the real issues before the American people into irra- 
tional action. By loud mouthed denunciation of the present 
social order, or by the glamour of brilliantly colored pictures of 
the material prosperity of the inevitable socialist regime, using 
their unwarrantable tactics the while, many are roped within the 
socialist camp, working for that which they would not have. 
Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down 
might not see him, while socialism dons the magic cap over 
its hydra head that the monster it is may not be seen by those 
whom it would devour. 



Public Ownership. 

Art thou my friend — forbear to do me guile, 

Nor clothe a secret grudge in friendship's smile : 

For traitorous friendship wounds th' unguarded breast 

With surer aim than enmity profess'd; 

And more on shoals the sailor fears to wreck, 

Than where the rocks hang frowning o'er his deck. 

Lucillius. 

SOCIALISM, by those whose enthusiasm for its propaganda is 
higher than their knowledge of its history, is often defined 
as the public ownership of public utilities. At once official socialism 
will have none of this; yet, it will, for purposes of spreading its 
influence and for securing votes for its political program. 
Within the organized movement the conflict between its final 
object — the revolution — and the means of reaching it, is ever 
active. The final object narrowed to its economic pivot is told 
officially. We quote from the "Principles" of the Socialist 
Party Platform adopted by National Convention, May, 1908. 

"The private ownership of the land and means of production used for 
exploitation, is the rock upon which class rule is built; political govern- 
ment's its indispensable instrument. The wage workers cannot be freed 
from exploitation without conquering the political power and substituting 
collective for private ownership of the land and means of production used 
for exploitation.". 

From this, one thing is at least clear, that it is the collective 
ownership of private capital which is the central demand. 
Expanded the pivotal demand may be cast into the words of 
Karl Kautsky, taken from "The Social Revolution," (pp. 8-9, 
Chicago, 1903.) This book is said to be "one of the most 
important contributions made to socialist literature during the 
last decade." (Translator's Preface). 

"Measures which seek to adjust the juridical and political super- 
structure of society, to change economic conditions, are reforms if they 
proceed from the class which is the political and economic ruler of society. 
They are reforms whether they are given freely or secured by the pressure 



56 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

of the subject class, or conquered through the power of circumstances. 
. . . On the contrary, any one is a revolutionist who seeks to conquer 
the political power for an hitherto oppressed class, and he does not lose 
this character if he prepares and hastens this conquest by social reforms 
wrested from the ruling classes. It is not the striving after social reforms 
but the explicit confining of one's self to them which distinguishes the 
social reformer from the social revolutionist." 

In one brief word it is the socialist position that the social 
reformer makes no assault upon the right of the private person to 
lucrative property — to the private ownership and operation of 
capital for profit. While the essential character of the revolu- 
tionist — the socialist — is his demand for the abolition of private 
property in productive capital. 

Here is the issue joined ! and we accept the gage of battle- 
Reform or Revolution. Here on economic ground, as far fetched 
as it may seem to the superficial student, socialism takes its 
departure from the sound and sober sense of things in general. 
For just at this initial decision one must choose between the 
sane reasoning that the Living God is of organized society, the 
Author and the materialist conception of history which traces 
the origin of human society no further back than matter and 
force. If civilization be the mere resultant of successive class 
struggles by which the dominant class foists its means of ad- 
vantage, upon the conquered class, as the moral code, then God 
did not from Mt. Sinai thunder forth the Ten Commandments, 
to be forever the right and wrong of human thought and action. 

Consequently the opening sentence of the declaration of 
Principles of the Socialist Party Platform has more, or rather 
less, in it than appeared to the men and women assembled at 
Chicago, May 1908, to the party membership at large by whom it 
was endorsed by referendum vote, Aug. 1908. We quote: 

"Human life depends upon food, clothing and shelter." 

But is not this sound? No, and yes. As a secondary 
principle it is perfectly true. Here, however, it is confidently 
set down as the basic foundation of a new order of society — as a 
first principle. Hence food, clothing and shelter is given as the 
cause of civilization ; as the ultimate end of civilization, and, too, 
as motive of the working program of the international revolution. 



Public Ownership. 57 

Yet as neither reason nor experience will permit the place of 
First Principles to be vacant, nor will commonsense permit 
secondary causes to usurp the place of first causes the revolution- 
ists are left in a sorry plight when brought up to the bar of 
philosophy, history or present day practice, while the genuine 
reformers have the entire field to themselves. For however 
much force socialism can gather, and there is no denying its 
spread, it has no ground upon which to build, no first principles 
upon which to stand. It can, indeed, as the wind let loose, 
destroy. Verily, the fool in his heart hath said there is no God, 
and he fears no contradiction. While the true reformers set 
down in letters of fire the first principle to lead all else : Human 
life is absolutely dependent upon God its Giver. 

Having probed home to the vital issues which separate the 
reformer from the revolutionist let us take further testimony 
to show that notwithstanding the general confusion of the public 
mind upon this matter, socialists themselves stand for the public 
ownership of social utilities only as a means of propaganda, 
and that mere vote-getting is, of course, one of these means: 

"There is a very general idea that socialism means an extension of the 
powers and functions of government," says The People — "This is % very 
natural misconception, but it is a dangerous misconception, and ought to 
be guarded against. Socialism does not mean the extension of go vernment ; 
on the contrary it means the end, the elimination of government. Govern- 
ment, the authority of a part of the people over the lives of the other, for 
in theory, all the people collectively over the lives of all the people in- 
dividually, is simply a result of the division of society into classes with 
conflicting interests. With the end of class divisions, the necessity of 
government disappears. The 'tyranny of socialism' is a bugbear, with 
no reality behind it. Socialism means individual freedom. 

"This is a point which ought to be made as clear as possible on every 
possible occasion." (The People, New York, Sunday, May 13, ic-ocO 

The National Convention of the Socialist Labor Party, 
(New York City, June 2-8, 1900) still further emphasizes this 
pcsition. Delegate Sanial, Chairman of the platform committee, 
reported in part as follows: 

"Without wasting time upon considerations that are familiar to every 
well-trained socialist ... I shall simply state that the committee rec- 
ommends that the platform . . , thatis, the Declaration of Principles, 



58 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

adopted in 1889 and somewhat amended in 1896 be readopted word for 
word, and the whole string of planks, that remind us of the infancy: of 
socialists . . .- be stricken out and the Declaration of Principles alone 
remain.. — : : 

"As for the rest, as for those measures, those palliatives which it is 
expected that socialists will advocate, or will push to the front wherever 
they have representatives in office, they can be made through the Municipal 
Program." 

Daniel De Leon expressed at this Convention (1900) the 
same fear of the effect of the practical program, especially 
of the plank relative to public ownership, that Eugene V. Debs 
voices to-day. After recalling the "time when we had to go 
around with our hats in our hands and try to sugar-coat our 
principles," all of which was very dangerous, De Leon adds: 

"By telling people what we might do — all of which things did not in 
any way effect the fundamental thing that we are after, namely, the 
abolition of the wages system — we simply notified the freaks and capital- 
ists through what doors they could get into our citadel and knock us out. 
These resolutions ought to be dropped. They are nonsense, and they are 
untrue. They imply a state of things that is not to be accomplished." 

The planks in question were "dropped" by a vote of 72 to 2. 

Although Debs is not given to pessimism he finds the larger 
increase in their vote, state and national, not entirely a matter for 
jubilation. 

"I cannot but feel that some of the votes placed to our credit this year 
obtained by methods not consistent with the principles of a revolutionary 
party, and in the long run will do more harm than good. 

"The danger I see ahead is that the socialist party at this stage, and 
under existing conditions, is apt to attract elements which it cannot 
assimilate, and that it may be either weighted down, or torn asunder with 
internal strife, or that it may become permeated and corrupted with the 
spirit of bourgeois reform to an extent that will practically destroy its 
virility and efficiency as a revolutionary organization. 

"To my mind the working class character and the revolutionary 
integrity of the socialist party are of first importance. All the votes of 
the people would do us no good if our party ceased to be a revolutionary 
party, or only incidentally so, while yielding more and more to the pressure 
to modify the principles and piogram of the party for the sake of swelling 
the vote and hastening the day of its expected triumph. 

"The truth is, that we have not a few members who regard vote-get- 
ting as of supreme importance, no matter by what method the votes may 



Public Ownership. 59 

be secured, and this leads them to hold out inducements and make rep- 
resentations which are not at all compatible with the stern and uncompro- 
mising principles of a revolutionary party. They seek to make the 
socialist propaganda so attractive — eliminating whatever may give offense 
to bourgeois sensibilities—that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as 
a means of education, and votes thus secured do not properly belong to 
us." (Inter fictional Socialist Review, Jan., 1911.) 

The position of the Socialist Labor Party on the ques- 
tion of municipal, state or national ownership of public utilities, 
— of public ownership short of the complete ideal of socialism, 
is from the international socialist standpoint considered the 
"most scientific." 

The Indianapolis Convention, which nationally united 
the "Debs' division" with the "anti-De Leon" faction of the 
socialist movement into the Socialist Party (known as the Social 
Democratic Party in the States of New York and Wisconsin), 
adopted a program of municipal reforms with this caution: 

"In advocating these measures as steps in the overthrow of capi- 
talism and the establishment of the Cooperative Commonwealth, we 
warn the working-class against the so-called public-ownership move- 
ments, as an attempt of the capitalist class to secure governmental 
control of public utilities for the purpose of obtaining greater security 
in the exploitation of other industries, and not for the amelioration of 
the conditions of the working-class." 

There was a strong minority against the adoption of the 
"immediate demands." But in despite of a threatening near- 
ness to another party split, they were adopted by a vote of 
5>358; while there were 1,325 votes cast for the complete aboli- 
tion of these demands, which have no more claim to be termed 
socialism, than had the extension of suffrage to the black man 
below the Mason and Dixon line. 

Even though it be an acknowledged means of getting votes, 
Ernest Untermann, editor, a foremost writer and translator of 
German socialist works into English, sees in public ownership 
no aid in furthering the social revolution. We quote from his 
pamphlet "Capitalism to Socialism:" 

"The opportunist wish to make socialist experiments, before the 
people understand the essence of the political socialist movement. The 



60 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

revolutionary socialists insist that the people shall know the foundation 
of political socialism, before they try any 'practical' experiments. 

"The most striking proof of the utter failure of municipal capitalism 
as an educator of socialist minds is furnished by the English towns, where 
the majority of the working class, after a generation of municipal owner- 
ship, still continue to vote capitalist politicians into office. 

"The same is true of Switzerland, where the object lesson of more 
than twenty years of direct legislation and national ownership of railroads 
has not succeeded in impressing the workers with the truth that they can 
only escape capitalist exploitation by organizing as a political party dis- 
tinct from and opposed to the capitalist parties. 

"The transformation of municipal capitalism into municipal socialism 
is the mission of the socialist party. This transformation is again a 
political problem. It requires the transformation of capitalist minds 
into socialist minds, and must be fought out along the line of 'Working 
class vs. Capitalist class,' or broadly speaking, 'Socialism vs. Capitalism.' 
Municipal socialism in its complete form cannot come without the con- 
quest of the state and the nation by the socialist. A socialist municipality 
within a capitalist state is impossible. 

"Municipal socialism requires the abolition of capitalism and of class 
rule. It is founded on local autonomy. And it finds its most important 
function in the administration of those great industries which could 
not be brought under collective control while the capitalists remained 
the ruling class. 

"Finally, it must be emphasized, that neither municipal capitalism 
nor state capitalism are a means of educating the working class to class 
consciousness and arraigning them solidly against the capitalist class." 

John C. Chase, socialist ex-mayor of Haverhill, Mass., 
in The Coming Nation, June 14, 1903, gives his opinion: 

"Government ownership of railroads and other institutions of like 
nature is not a cure, nor is it even a palliative remedy. . . . There is 
no cure for our ills, short of the absolute abolition of capitalism.' ' 

The Chicago Daily Socialist (July 24, 1907) writing cynically 
under the caption Investigating Municipal Ownership of that 
undertaking by the National Civic Federation (which was in 
fact an exhaustive work, including a report of its findings at 
home and abroad, which is not, on the whole, favorable to the 
general introduction of public ownership in this country) , con- 
cludes as follows: 

"The remedy for these menaces is not to be found in limiting either the 
rights of municipal employees or of municipalization itself. 



Public Ownership. 6t 

"Here as elsewhere the remedy for the evils of democracy is more 
democracy. 

"The 'remedy' for the evils of municipalization is GENUINE 
SOCIALISM. 

"When all employees are public employees, and all are interested in all 
industries, there will be no class outside with interests at variance with 
those employed by the government. 

"When the government is a working-class government and not a 
capitalist government, then all will be equally interested in seeing that the 
entire product goes to the workers, and that hours are short, labor is 
pleasant, and that production is as economical as possible.' ' 

Truly this is a splendid specimen of that glowing imagina- 
tion which burns its subject to cinders — of that specious writing 
which appeals to the mediocre mind which loves ease rather than 
eifort. However, it is not here our purpose to take this point 
in hand. We offer it merely as cumulative testimony to the 
socialist position upon public ownership; to which we further 
add that of William English Walling : 

"Of the twenty-five immediate demands in the socialist platform, 
only those referring to the political structure. of this country are of a 
revolutionary character. Why is this the case? First, because all of 
the economic reforms, such as government ownership, progressive taxa- 
tion and labor legislation, will be introduced to a very large degree by the 
capitalists themselves, and not out of the fear of socialism or radicalism 
of any kind, but because of their own economic interests." (Chicago 
Daily Socialist, Nov. 19, 1909.) 

Going abroad for opinions relative to public ownership we 
shall first introduce Henry Mayers Hyndman, than whom no 
international authority on socialism stands higher : 

"There is no possibility of reducing the existing anarchy in production 
and distribution to order by anything short of this collective ownership 
of the great means and instruments of production and distribution. This 
inevitably involves the overthrow of private property or company owner- 
ship of those great means and instruments of creating and distributing 
wealth. And this again carries with it the disappearance of the class 
state, and the establishment of an organized commission in which private 
ownership will be confined within the narrowest possible limits. 

"Those who talk of 'municipal socialism' as if it were possible to 
segregate mankind into petty little units, with no power to regulate the 
general production, first nationally and then internationally, overlook 



62 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

the most striking features of the economic development which is going on 
around them. 

"Mere palliatives, such as those which have been advocated for years 
by the Social-Democratic Federation, and are now being adopted in some 
shape by both the existing capitalist political factions, are, after all, but 
palliatives ; although the men who have been most active in championing 
them, have carried on this 'practical' propaganda with the direct object 
of preparing the way to a complete and, if possible, peaceful transforma- 
tion. But wage-slaves under better conditions remain wage-slaves still; 
and the cause of the economic and class antagonism remains untouched 
by any half-measures. No improvements of the capitalist system of 
production can change or seriously modify the bitter struggle which must 
go on so long as that system endures in any shape. 

"The time is coming when the expropriators will be themselves ex- 
propriated, and it is for the rising generation of Englishmen to decide 
whether in this country the substitution of organized co-operation for 
anarchical competition shall be brought about consciously and peacefully, 
or unconsciously and forcibly.'! ("The Commercial Crisis of the Nine- 
teenth Century, ' ! pages 172,173.) 

In "Woman and Socialism" (p. 406, 50th edition, 1910) the 
author, August Bebel takes the same position as do all inter- 
national authorities : 

"But these state-owned institutions [mail, telephone, telegraph, rail- 
road services] are not socialistic institutions, as is erroneously assumed. 
These institutions are exploited by the state, according to the same capi- 
talistic principles as if they were privately owned. Neither the officials 
nor the workingmen are particularly benefited by them. The state does 
not treat them differently from a private employer. . . . These are not 
socialistic but capitalistic actions, and socialists have every reason to 
protest against the assumption that the present state-owned institutions 
are socialistic in character and may be regarded as a realization of social- 
istic aims/' 

Many more authorities might easily be quoted, but this 
will suffice to show that the disciples of modern socialism but 
follow the teachings of the founders. Frederick Engels in 
"Socialism from Utopia to Science," lays down the basis and 
makes the argument from which latter day socialists take 
their cue : 

"Neither conversion into stock companies nor State ownership re- 
moves the quality of capital from the powers of production, With the- 



Public Ownership. 63 

stock-companies, this fact remains obvious. On the other. hand, the 
modern State is but the organization which capitalist society gives itself 
in order to maintain the external conditions of capitalist production 
against the attacks both of the workmen and of individual capitalists. 
The modern State, whatever its form, is essentially a capitalist machine ; 
it is the State of the capitalist; the ideal total capitalist. The more 
numerous the productive powers are which it takes in hand, the nearer 
it is to that ideal total capitalist ; all the more citizens does it exploit. 

"Since Bismarck took to the plan of State ownership, a certain false 
socialism has risen, and even degenerated here and there into a certain 
degree of sycophancy, which declares off-hand all State ownership, the 
3ismarckian variety included, to be socialist. Indeed, were State owner - 
shipof the tobacco industry socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would be 
counted among the founders of socialism. When the Belgian State, from 
purely common political and financial reasons, built is own main railroad; 
when Bismarck, without any economic necessity, took possession for the 
State of the principal railroad lines of Prussia, simply with the view the 
better to organize and utilize them against a war, to rear the railroad em- 
ployees into voting cattle for the government, and, above all, to furnish 
himself with a new source of revenue that should be independent from 
parliamentary enactments — neither was in any way a socialist measure, 
directly or indirectly, conscious or unconscious. Else, were the Crown's 
Royal Maritime Company, the Crown's porcelain factory, and even the 
regimental tailor likewise socialist institutions. '! 

It is but fair to assume that the inquiring mind will rest 
content on the testimony given: that government ownership 
of public utilities, is not socialism. Therefore it has no legiti- 
mate ground to be classed as such. Yet popular opinion has 
it that public ownership is socialism, and rightly so, too, for this 
opinion is fostered not alone by the popular propaganda — by its 
soap-box orators and its ephemeral literature— but by the specific 
demands listed in the Program, of the Socialist party. 

Like its arguments its actions are "double crossed." Its 
demands are against its demands. We demand that the ' 'capital- 
ist state" shall own and operate social utilities is opposed to the 
ultimate demand of socialism. For every additional public 
service taken from private hands into the control of the civic body 
adds to the power and functions of existing government; that 
is to say, it extends the power of the capitalist class ; hence the 
state which it is the socialists' mission to destroy, becomes the 
stronger. Deeply studied, perhaps no incident in its history 
gives stronger proof of its irrational foundation — stronger proof 



64 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children, 

that although socialists can gather a mighty force this force in 
action ever falls in upon itself — the point of the revolution 
is again and again broken, as the Marxian phrase goes. In 
handling irresponsible power it crushes itself not alone but 
innocent victims as well. 

Ere socialism had raised its ugly head in the political 
world the fathers of this republic had embodied the principle 
of public ownership of social utilities in their local, state and 
national life. Thus it is that the further ownership of public 
utilities may be adopted by municipalities and states without 
overstepping the boundaries of our constitution, while the 
control of business not public or semi-public in its nature requires 
a constitutional amendment, which would necessarily be an 
infringment upon the right of lucrative property — private capital. 
About the year 1890 the Judiciary of Massachusetts passed upon 
this point. 

The judicial opinion is in substance as follows: Public 
utilities are those things which require a governmental function, 
such as the distribution of water, gas, electricity — commodities 
which necessitate a single enterprise with supplies emanating 
from a single source — those things which require the use of the 
public highways, etc. We may then have the public ownership 
of all possible social utilities without the introduction of social- 
ism, without a change in the "economic system," for the sufficient 
reason that there is no assault upon private property, no demand 
for the "abolition of the wages-system" et al. Yet so long as 
socialists would ride into political power upon the advocacy 
of measures which avowedly are not socialism there is grave 
danger that the popular vote will give the municipality over into 
incompetent hands. Indeed it is just now doing that very thing. 
The purpose of this division should be clear. It is to separate 
socialism proper from that indistinct notion of it which causes 
many a man, aye, and woman too, to aid in the propagation 
of socialist doctrine, which is in truth as far away from the ideals 
which they seek to realize as heaven is from hell. 



Evolution. 

"Eternal, infinite God, I perceive Thy omnipo- 
tence in the works of Thy creation, and am like one 
stricken daft with admiration and wonder. Every 
part of Thy handiwork, the most infinitesimal as well 
as the most sublime, is alive with power and wisdom, 
with unspeakable perfection. The benefits that accrue 
to us poor mortals from Thy works prove Thy infinite 
goodness, their beauty and harmony bespeak Thy 
wisdom, their perpetuosity and fruitfulness Thy 
eternal power." 

— LlNN/EUS. 

THE world in which one consciously lives is as large as one's 
attained capacity to conceive of the universe as a whole. 
If therefore Smith knows more about cause and effect than Jones 
it is sufficient proof that he has evolved to a higher state of under- 
standing about the phenomena of the universe than has Jones. 
But about the Cosmos itself? That is another question. Hence 
it is between the what and the how that the issue lies. 

What is the Cosmos, and how does it manifest itself and its 
phenomena to human consciousness? 

As self-discovery is the primary act, the basis, of individual 
consciousness, it is certain that one's identity is a natural revela- 
tion. I am thus separated from all things else in the Cosmos. 
Yet what I am is to be known only by my knowledge ot my 
origin. So, after all, this is the first question, who caused me? 
that of what is the Cosmos is secondary. To the Christian the 
answer is plain, God created me, the Cosmos is God's creation. 

As a rational act must have a purpose, I have a destiny, 
the Cosmos has a destiny. 

What is the universe as a whole ? Certainly an effect ; being 
an effect there must be a cause which is adequate? God is alone 
an adequate cause. 

Here is the ground of reason, as the last step of inquiry has 
been taken. To go beyond is to be absurd — as who created God ? 



66 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

And; to remain this side is to deal with the how of the Cosmos 
instead of what is the Cosmos? Hence the issue is clear cut, it 
lies between right-reason on the one hand and inadequate reason 
on the other, between Christ and the anti-Christ. The Christ- 
tian establishes the identity of the Cosmos — God's Creation— 
before he gives his attention to the evolutionary processes of the 
universe. While the socialist paying heed, first of all, to evolu- 
tion, permits processes to usurp his attention before the identity 
of the thing proceeding (the Cosmos) has been established. 
Ernest Untermann concedes the ground and defends it as 
follows : 



", . . Every socialist writer of note is a convinced Darwinian and 
Spencerian besides being a convinced Marxian. For this reason, the 
socialist Darwinians are alone able to reason in a consistent materialist 
monist way." ("Science and Revolution," p. 149, 1905.) 

Just so, as we said, here the action is set up in the place of the 
identity of the thing acting. Of course, taken as one whole the 
acts of the Cosmos is a monistic act, but as first questions come 
first, what should engage the rational attention first is, what is 
it that is performing the act? The one thing — the material 
universe. Very well, what is the material universe? Unless 
one is willing to swing round and round the vicious circle, plainly 
it is not the one thing acting, but God's creation. 

So, truly, it is not our intention to quarrel with the con- 
sistency of the "materialist monist," but rather to make a great 
quarrel with his irrational premise. He has no First Cause. 
Denying himself this, he is bereft of the law of contrast at the 
very basis of reason, and consequently he deals with what he 
knows not. If he proceeds consistently from his blind premise to 
his conclusions so much the worse for his doctrines, being so 
wholly blind. 

For like reasons we are willing, wholly so, to give * 'honor" 
where it is by Isadore Ladoff alleged to be due. We quote : 

"The honor of the first attempt to apply evolutionary methods to the 
history of men unmistakably belongs to the great founder of the material- 
istic conception of history, Karl Marx. Without the conception of human 
society as a product of evolution, critical socialism would be an im- 
possibility. As a matter of fact, critical socialism is nothing else but a 



Evolution. 67 

rational system of philosophy of human life in the light of the theory of 
evolution. The so-called materialistic conception is to be called more 
properly the evolutionary conception of history.'! ("The Passing of 
Capitalism/' p 76.) 

This is still closer to the issue of right reason versus incom- 
petent reason, as Mr. Ladoff leaves "materialist monism" in the 
background to deal with "human society as a product of evolu- 
tion." 

But is human society a product of evolution? If we reason 
rightly, no. We see mankind evolving history, and history tells 
what mankind does, not what mankind is. What of the origin ci 
mankind ? Then it is quite proper, but of secondary importance, 
to inquire what of the processes — what of the evolution — of 
mankind. From the fact that socialism refuses to settle the 
first question, first, the First Cause finds never its proper place 
within its system of thought. Socialism is barred from the 
company of science by its refusal to ask what is mankind? Obvi- 
ously this question would bring confusion with its answer : 
mankind is God's creation, not a product of evolution. Atheism, 
Pantheism, Modernism et al sees the design, the action, the crea- 
tion and the formation, the work of man, within the Cosmos, 
but never the cause of the Cosmos. Never the Original Cause 
of the universe which alone could explain it. Hence the origin 
of man and the destiny of man lie as a sealed book to socialists. 
The question what leads directly to the identity of mankind, and 
only after the identity of the race has been established, may the 
evolution of the identified creation be scientifically observed. 

Yes, the Cosmos is evolving! human society is evolving! 
But to arrive at the point of beginning in reason man and the 
Cosmos must be seen as God's creation, as against the assump- 
tion of "materialist monism," which is reduced to the absurdity 
of evolving itself. So it is that the system of thought — "the ma- 
terialist conception of history," pronounced to be invulnerable, 
by its founder Marx, logically begins nowhere, and logically it 
must end in the same absurd place. "Economic determinism" 
has thus to solve an insoluble riddle. It must account for man 
who is conscious of himself as the creation of nature which is 
at best sub-conscious. It has the further task of accounting for 
the moral order as having evolved from the non-moral order, 



68 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

as the idea of criminal or sinful animals is quite too funny. 
Furthermore it must do the further stunt of routing put of the 
individual consciousness the fact of free choice, as within its 
fold "the evolutionary conception of history" has no place what- 
soever for free-will. But more than all this, these monists — 
philosophers of a complete scheme of life — deny the very princi- 
ple of self -consciousness, namely, that of ultimate contrast, the 
created Cosmos as contrasted with its Creator, as recognized by 
the conscious principle embodied within the individual man. 

We now proceed to take further testimony from their 
authorities in proof of our charge that socialist philosophy is 
destitute of the First Cause. 

One thing is certain, that the Darwinistic and socialistic 
philosophical deductions expressed in conduct lead to the 
degeneracy of human society ; for men are robbed of the under- 
standing that between themselves and the animal-world there 
stands the moral law prescribed by the Author of life. 

The authority of God is overthrown by the doctrine, which 
declares necessity to have shaped forms, to have originated 
design. Paul Lafargue (son-in-law to Karl Marx) in his work, 
"Socialism and the Intellectuals," says: "When Darwin 
published his * Origin of Species' he took away from God his role 
of creator in the organic world as Franklin had despoiled him of 
his thunderbolt." 

This from Enrico Ferri : 

"Science and religion are in inverse ratio to each other; the one 
diminishes and grows weaker in the same proportion that the other 
increases and grows stronger in its struggle against the unknown. 

"And if this is one of the consequences of Darwinism, its influence 
on the development of socialism is quite obvious." 

Then in the name of what socialists term "science," Ferri 
throws the oft-exploded question, — "And God, who created 
him?" 

Leonard D. Abbott, a prominent New York socialist, in 
a review of "Darwin and Marx," (The People, Vol. 9, No. $3), 
adds his weight to "science:" 

"The fundamental theories of both Darwin and Marx are still vehe- 
mently combated by the majority of men — naturally so, for an admission 



Evolution. 69 

of their truth carries with it the downfall of popular religion and our 
existing, social system .' ' 

-: :. Jfii - : . ■ . . 

The "popular religion" is of course the Christian religion. 
So over against the common-sense teaching of Christianity — 
that man is not only a rational animal, but that he is also an 
immortal being — it is that socialism sets up the intellectual 
degeneracy of monism. Which irrational assumption is re- 
duced to its logical conclusion in the notion that nothing ex- 
ists beyond that which man, with his physical senses, can 
analyze; and the further assumption that the only wants — the 
primary wants of man may be realized by the satisfaction of 
his sexual and bread-and-butter desires. Literature of this 
quality is dished out as "Modern Science." In words common 
to the street, "it is as old as hell." 

Mr. Abbot is correct — "The theories of Darwin (as so- 
cialists interpret him) and Marx . . . carry with them 
the downfall of popular religion," and further correct is he, 
"the downfall of our existing social system." Certainly, for 
socialism can but destroy — to build is outside the province 
of its negations, and although the fathers of modern socialism 
are passed and gone, they leave behind them a band of loyal 
worshippers at the shrine of materialism, which is set forth in 
no uncertain tones 

In "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," which The Inter- 
national Socialist Review (Chicago, Feb. 1906), says "still re- 
mains the one great short classic of socialism, the reading of 
which along with the "Communist Manifesto" constitutes an 
absolute essential to an understanding of the socialist move- 
ment." Frederick Engels gives Darwin the cake for showing 
that man came into being not by the fiat of God, but rather 
by the accidental presence of forces from this, that and any 
old direction. But like the lie that always gives itself away, 
so does truth come up to ask, what is the First Cause of " or- 
ganic nature?" Surely neither substance nor force. We 
quote from this short classic, which is put to the stunt of an- 
nihilating right-reason : 

"Special mention is due to Darwin, who dealt metaphysics its heaviest 
blow by showing that the whole organic nature now in existence, plants, 



70 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

animals, and consequently, man also, is the product of an evolution that 
has been in process through millions of years.'' 

This is naive, for it is not a question of the time of the 
process, but rather of the identity of the thing evolving. Is 
it God's creation or not? 

Enrico Ferri comes close up to the point, only to miss it. 
We quote: 

"I add that not only is Darwinism not in contradiction with social- 
ism, but that it constitutes one of its fundamental scientific premises. 
As Virchow justly remarked, socialism is nothing but a logical and vital 
corrollary, in part of Darwinism, in part of Spencerian evolution. 

"The theory of Darwin, whether we wish it or not, by demonstrating 
that man is descended from the animals, has dealt a severe blow to the 
belief in God as the creator of the universe and of man as a special fiat."- 

The ultimate question is not with regard to the process 
which God set up for the creation of man's body, but rather 
this: Is man God's creature by a fiat which separates him in 
kind, not merely in degree, from the rest of the animal king- 
dom? 

Christianity maintains that man is separated from ani- 
mals by direct revelation, both natural and supernatural, thus 
endowing him with self -consciousness, by free-will, which 
prescribes his moral responsibility and by his positive art prin- 
ciple, which on economic ground puts an impossible barrier 
between the "tool using animal" and whatsoever animals. 

Socialism, on the contrary, scorning, at best ignoring re- 
ligion, risks its claim to science upon the evolutionary passage of 
man up from the non-tool using animal. Said a national 
leader while addressing a Boston audience, "Whether you like 
it or not, we are all descended from the ape." So it is that the 
dogma — "economic determinism" sets down as its basic prin- 
ciple that "Human life depends upon food, clothing and shel- 
ter." (Socialist Party Platform, 1908). 

Here is, indeed, a recognition of the animal life of man, 
but no recognition of his free-will, and so at best only a partial 
recognition of his conscious art principle. For it is his God- 
given talent for creating his own economic designs by which 
to obtain his food and to produce his clothing and shelter, 



Evolution. 71 

which economically differentiates him from the brute creation. 
Because of his talent for appropriating to his economic uses 
whatsoever of natural supplies, he creates his environment in 
conformity to his self -created design. By the exercise of his 
will he may create such environment as will best sustain him. 
By the exercise of his will he may direct the forces and re- 
form the substances of nature to the satisfaction of his wants. 
By the exercise of his will he may direct his energies to the 
salvation of his soul. 

By using the human art principle man augments his vision 
by the telescope, the microscope and the X-ray. With the 
telephone, the telegraph and wireless telegraphy he extends 
his power of communication—of speech. With the derrick 
and the steam shovel he adds strength to his arm. With the 
railroad, steamship and airship he extends his power of loco- 
motion. Whence came this positive art principle by which 
man may first create his design and then work it out in sub- 
stance, if not God given? It is not merely more of the same 
instinct to which the animal negatively responds in carrying 
out the designs impressed upon him by the Creator of the 
heaven and the earth. The atheistical biologists have not even 
a suggestion which covers this great gap in their theory. Evo- 
lution from their standpoint is a mock to common sense. 

We repeat, this discussion does not properly fall upon the 
process of forming man's body, but rather upon the impassible 
gap which separates him economically from whatsoever animal. 
To be cock-sure of what is without satisfactory proof to any 
biologist of standing; to be silent upon the latest pronounce- 
ment that "animals do not think," and to ignore the common, 
ordinary facts, in the experience of all men at all times, in all 
places, is audacity carried beyond the limit not merely of right- 
reason, there is an impudence in it that savors strongly of ill- 
will towards Almighty God. Indeed, rebellion is the very 
first and the rotten, ripest fruit of malignant minds. Yet for 
one to declare his belief that his ancestors were not monkeys, 
would be a gross display of ignorance from the socialist stand- 
ard of intelligence. 

The links are still missing! and they are to be found 
before the dividing line which separates man from the animal 



72 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

is eliminated from the time-honored standards, as laid down 
in the first book of Moses. Man is still king of all he surveys, 
made in the image of his God. 

Of course we are aware that Haeckel in his latest book 
(which by the way is written with an anti-Christian animus 
quite unbecoming in a man of science) brings forth his fossil 
man-monkey of Java, his Pithecanthropus Erectus as claim- 
ant to the place of Sir Linkship. But one freak does not prove 
the "missing link" so surely as one shell proves a clam-bake. 

In a manner which a school boy may understand, Henry 
George has set forth the universal experience as testimony 
against the socialist claim that there is difference in degree 
only between man and the brute creation over which God gave 
him dominion. 

"The beaver builds a dam, and the bird a nest, and the bee a cell; 
but while beavers' dams, and birds' nests, and bees' cells are always 
constructed on the same model, the house of man passes from the rude 
hut of leaves and branches to the magnificent mansion replete with 
modern conveniences. The dog can to a certain extent connect cause and 
effect, and may be taught some tricks; but his capacity in these respects 
has not been a whit increased during all the ages he has been the associate 
of improving man, and the dog of civilization is not a whit more accom- 
plished or intelligent than the dog of the wandering savage. We know 
of no animal that uses clothes, that cooks its food, that makes itself tools 
or weapons, that breeds other animals that it wishes to eat, or that has an 
articulate language. But men who do not do such things have never yet 
been found, or heard of, except in fable. That is to say, man^wherever 
we know him, exhibits this power — of supplementing what nature has 
done for him by what he does for himself.". ("Progress and Poverty.") 

Truly, it is the absence of evidence which socialism re- 
lies upon as the authority to prove that " God as the creator of 
the universe and of man as a special fiat has been annihilated." 

And yet, to prop up its impossible premise that non-en- 
tity can produce entity — that the universe proceeds from 
nothing — that the positive intelligence of man has evolved 
from the passive intelligence of the lower kingdoms, it must 
at best set down some words in a string. These are from August 
Bebel: 

"Natural science has made a myth of creation ; astronomy, mathe- 
matics and physics have converted heaven into airy space, and the stars 



Evolution. 



13 



on heaven's tent where the angels sat enthroned, into fixed stars and 
planets, whose nature quite excludes the presence of such beings as angels. 
The ruling class, which sees its existence threatened, clings to religion 
as the support of all authority, a dogma which all rulers have upheld up to 
the present day. The bourgeoisie believes nothing ; it has itself destroyed 
all belief in religion and authority by its own process of development, and 
by science, to which it has given birth. Its belief is a farce, and the 
church accepts the help of this false friend because it needs help." 
("Woman in the Past, Present and Future," page 146.) 

More than a century has passed since the forbears of so- 
cialism announced the forthcoming "proof" which Science 
had in store for a willful world, namely, that man came from 
nowhere and was going to the self -same place. 

Frederick Engels casts this perverse prescience into a 
known fact, to be worked out forthwith into proletarian votes, 
with which to organize that new but impossible thing, a " class- 
less society. ' ' 

"Man is the product of evolution, that has been in process through 
millions of years.". 

. The world's authority on time denies this possibility. 

"If Natural Selection be true, the geological time requisite for the 
evolving of species such as they exist at present, must be vastly greater 
than can be allowed by astronomers for the whole life of the solar system. 

" 'Suppose it took 500 years to form a greyhound out of his wolf-like 
ancestor, how long ought it to take to form an elephant from a protozoon, 
or even from a tadpole-like fish?' Mr. Mivart finds it 'not easy to believe 
that less than 2,000,000,000 years would be required for the totality of 
animal development by no other means than minute, fortuitous, occasional 
and intermitting variations in all conceivable directions;' that is about 
one hundred times more than Lord Kelvin allows for the age of sunlight 
itself.'! 

From his own pen it may be seen with what force the ob- 
jection which time raised against his theory was appreciated 
by Darwin himself : 

"Thompson's views of the recent age of the world have been for some 
time one of my sorest troubles." (Life and Letters, vol. iii, p. 114.) 

And it is well known that the late Lord Kelvin (Sir William 
Thompson) who in many respects was considered the greatest 



74 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

of scientists asserted " that science positively affirms creative 
power and makes everyone feel a miracle in himself." 
Lord Kelvin's contention was that: 



"Because biologists could not escape from the conclusion that there 
was original creative power when they studied the physics and dynamics 
of living and dead matter, science was not antagonistic to religion, but a 
help to it. 'A million of millions of millions of years would not give them 
a beautiful world like ours.' !- 

An incident related by himself giving not only Lord Kel- 
vin's confession of faith, but that also of the great Liebig: 

"Forty years ago I asked Liebig, walking somewhere in the country, 
if he believed that the grass and flowers which we saw around us grow by- 
mere chemical force. He answered : 'No ! no more than I could believe 
that a book of botany describing them could grow by mere chemical 
forces.':: 

Certainly, there were no history without something to 
record; no knowledge of identity or of evolutionary processes 
without human consciousness; no self consciousness without 
natural revelation by which God the creator gives testimony 
of Himself to His children. So it is that common sense rests every 
act, conscious and non-conscious, back upon the Providence of 
God, not upon the action of mere chemical force. 

The late Rev. D. T. O'Sullivan, S.J., of Boston College, an 
able theologian and scientist, says: 

„ "Two important deductions may be drawn from reading the oppo- 
nents of Lord Kelvin : the first is, that while they deny Creative Power, they 
offer no alternative; and, secondly, their reason for not accepting Creative 
Power is that they cannot conceive of it. The first shows clearly the limi- 
tations of biology as such and its ignorance of the origin of its own subject 
matter. Ignorance of a thing can never become an argument for its non- 
existence. Inadequacy of the means offered by a particular science must 
be supplemented by other legitimate means furnished by some- other 
legitimate branch of science in order to reach the conclusion which the 
first science unaided could never attain. In the case under consideration 
the facts furnished by biology must be aided by^a process of logical reason- 
ing upon those facts, and the logical conclusion must be admitted by every 
reasonable mind. 

"This brings us to the consideration of the second deduction of the 
opponents of a Creative Power — namely, that they cannot admit such a 



Evolution. eht 75 

power because they cannot conceive of it. This is a most startling state- 
ment in the light of scientific methods in every department of science. If 
there is one thing that any scientist demands as a matter of belief and to 
which he appeals in all his investigations it is the principle of causation. 
Remove this principle and what a sorry picture is presented by the in- 
vestigator in the laboratory! 

"Now, those scientists who rigorously demand the application of this 
principle in every step of scientific investigation should logically demand 
it to explain the existence of the universe. Hence, to say that they cannot 
conceive of a Creative Power is to abandon at a crucial point the principle 
of causation, the chief incentive to scientific investigation. 

"Probably scientific atheism is based largely on the misunderstanding 
of the too great generalization of modern science. These great laws are 
the conservation of energy and the conservation of matter. But in reality 
what do they mean ? Simply this : in our hands we can neither destroy 
or create matter or energy, and that we believe on the principle of causa- 
tion that the same effect always follows everywhere the same cause, and 
hence we generalize. But whence matter and energy? Are we to deny 
the principle of causation here ? 

"It is refreshing to find such princes of science as Kelvin, Newton, 
Muller, Locke, Schwann, Pasteur, Liebig and others deeply drinking at the 
fount of science and impregnated with the true philosophy of science, 
defending from scientific grounds the existence of God in opposition to the 
agnosticism of Huxley, the materialism of Tyndall, the atheism of 
Clifford, the skepticism of Fitzjames Stephen, the positivism of Frederic 
Harrison and the pantheism of Haeckel to understand that science must 
perforce soon cease her dogmatism, confine herself to her own legitimate 
sphere and become as she must by right the handmaid of religion." 

Socialism has no idea that science shall become truly the 
handmaid of religion. From the more important books written 
by socialists and circulated as socialist doctrine, it appears 
that they are more concerned with the dethronement of God 
than they are with the upbuilding of a better social environ- 
ment. 

And rightly so, for anti-religion was the spirit in which 
the movement was conceived and born into the world. We 
would not indeed charge this motive to all the camp-following, 
but it is true generally of those who write the books, make 
the speeches and mold the policies of the political party. The 
leaders give the "full consequence" only to those of sufficiently 
developed socialist minds." Hence to the initiated, socialism 
is the science of life, whose primary activity is spent in a quarrel 



76 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

with God, and secondarily their quarrel is with that abstract 
thing, the "capitalist class," for the individual is blameless by 
the orders of economic determinism. 

The key to the situation is given in a bit of popular his- 
tory made on the Pacific Coast. The incident is related by 
the Toledo Socialist (May 19, 1906): 

"Comrade Lena Morrow Lewis has been having a great time with 
some of the socialists of California, who protest against her elucidation 
of the theory of evolution on the lecture platform. Comrade Lewis has 
a talk on evolution in which she advises the workers to read "The Evolu- 
tion of Man," by Boelsche. She has another talk which helps to spread 
Bebel's 'Woman in the Past, Present and Future.' At Riverside one of 
the comrades said Comrade Lewis made a good talk, all right, but she 
ought to leave out that monkey business as some people didn't like to be 
told they were descended from monkeys ; also he wished she would stop 
pushing that 'Woman's Magazine' (meaning Bebel's 'Woman') as some 
of the church members didn't like it. And he claimed to be a scientific 
socialist.'! 

"One of the comrades" evidently had better intentions 
than "scientific" knowledge of his doctrine — though it were 
well to recall that hell is said to be paved with good intentions. 
God grant that these good intentions work out to the scientific 
understanding that socialism leads to chaos not to order! 

From these mighty little gentlemen themselves there is 
not much hope save in miraculous help, for notwithstanding 
the fact that their most illustrious leader has thrown up the 
sponge long since, they still stick to economic determinism, as the 
author of all things on earth and in heaven. Since Haeckel 
has confessed that "the innermost character of nature" is still 
a mystery what should keep Blind Force on her throne? As 
there is "only one" poser to science — "only one comprehensive 
riddle of the universe remains — the problem of substance" — 
and as that riddle material science cannot solve for the simple 
reason that it lies outside her province it truly were common- 
sense to quit. So, indeed, Science may be known for what she 
is — the handmaiden of Religion, not its boss as the materialist 
monist et al would make it out. Now that a godless science 
has no foremost man in its defense (despite the number of those 
who make of atheism a trade) why not take it for granted 



Evolution. 77 

that the inherent design asserted as the fiat of Almighty God 
holds good as the rational attitude of mind against the perverse 
guesses of those who dismiss God with silent contempt, or make 
of the Almighty a helpless abstraction with as many characters 
as there are blasphemers to turn them out! 

In 1900 Prof. Haeckel wiped out with the sponge of indiffer- 
ence the only possible solution of his insoluable riddle, we quote : 

"We grant at once that the innermost character of nature is just as 
little understood by us as it was by Anaximander and Empedocles twenty- 
four hundred years ago, by Spinoza and Newton two hundred years ago, 
and by Kant and Goethe one hundred years ago. We must even grant 
that this essence of substance becomes more mysterious and enigmatic 
the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of its attributes, matter and 
energy, and the more thoroughly we study its countless phenomenal 
forms and their evolution. We do not know the 'thing in itself that lies 
behind these knowable phenomena. But why trouble about this enigmatic 
'thing in itself when we have no means of investigating it, when we do not 
even clearly know whether it exists or not?'! ("The Riddle of the 
Universe," New York, 1900.) 

Why indeed "trouble" about the First Cause which lies 
behind all knowable phenomena? The only difference is that 
between the highest and the lowest. For quietly ignoring the 
thing in itself is not sufficient, the hatred of our Heavenly Father 
must needs be active. So by giving himself no trouble about the 
one only "enigma" of life was followed up by vicious deeds 
upon the field of science which but lately brought this most 
redoubtable gentleman of the atheist school to grief of mind, 
at least. And with Prof. Haeckel's reputation was lost the 
"data" upon which socialism builds itself as a "scheme of life." 
The event was rather gingerly reported in the daily press, es- 
pecially considering the fact that "evolution" although dis- 
carded by the foremost scientists is retailed in popular accounts 
as a matter of course, and in fiction as trueblue. But in America 
(New York, May 22, 1909) the downfall of the evolutionary 
theory which was supported by manufactured dates and dia- 
grams is competently set forth under the caption, The Retire- 
ment of Prof. Haeckel 

"Shortly before his seventy-fifth year was readied (Feb. 16, 1909) 
Ernst Haeckel, Professor of Zoology at the University of Jena had boon 



78 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

compelled to admit, over his own signature, the existence of deliberate 
forgeries in his scientific writings. 

"Haeckel had published in 1907 a pamphlet, entitled 'Das Menschen 
— Problem, ' in which representations of embryos of man: — and apes were 
given. Dr. Arnold Brass in 'Das Affen — Problem' asserted that many 
of the diagrams were inaccurate and worthless, and that others had been 
purposely and deliberately falsified; that in particular, Haeckel's Gibbon — 
embryo (plate 1 11) was a reproduction of Selenka's drawing of a Macacus- 
monkey-embryo, 15 or 16 vertebrae having been omitted, and the name 
changed; . . . In proof, Brass published the original diagrams and 
Haeckel's distorted and forged copies side by side. 

"This deadly parallel made all thought of escape impossible. 
Haeckel's reply appeared in the Munchner Allgemeine Zeitung (No. 2. 
Jan. 9, 1909) and contained the following admission: 

" 'To put an end to this unsavory dispute I begin at once with the 
contrite confession, that a small number (6 to 8 per cent) of my embryo 
diagrams are really forgeries in Dr. Brass's sense . . . I should feel 
utterly condemned and annihilated by this admission, were it not 
that ... the great majority of all morphological, anatomical, 
historlogical and embryo logical diagrams . . . are not true to nature, 
but are more or less doctored, schematized and reconstructed. . . .' 

"The last sentence caused a sensation. Professional ethics require 
that the word schematic be always added to every diagram which the 
author has retouched or invented; whereas Haeckel deliberately left his 
readers under the impression that he was using diagrams from nature! 
The Zoologists of Germany were, therefore, compelled, much against their 
will, to throw Haeckel overboard in order to save their own honor. 

"A statement signed by 46 professors representing 25 German and 
Austrian universities and scientific schools discredited Haeckel's work (No. 
8, Munchner Allgemeine Zeitung) and 36 other scientists representing 
nineteen universities, botanical laboratories, etc., of Germany, Switzer- 
land and Austria including the University of Jena agreed in demanding 
'that henceforth as in the past, German scientific research shall rest on an 
uncompromising love of truth. . . .' 'Yet the past holds an ugly 
record: — ' In 1868 Haeckel printed off one and the same diagram three 
times in succession to show the marvelous similarity of the embryos of 
man, ape and dog. Rutimeyer called attention to this curious device, 
whereupon Haeckel conceded that he had been guilty of a 'thoughtless 
piece of folly.' The end of his career is therefore worthy of the beginning 
(Augsburger Post-Veitung, March 23, 1909) 'Repudiation of Haeckel is 
now unanimous and complete : he is discredited by the signed verdict of 
eighty-two of the foremost German authorities.' " 

Poor Haeckel! indeed, to have falsely furnished the dates 
and the diagrams for the socialist proof "that the whole or- 



EvoLUTroN. 79 

ganic nature now in existence — plants, animals, and conse- 
quently men also — is the product of evolution." Meanwhile 
the fact that he gave himself no trouble about Eternal Truth, 
at last sent him out of the university old, clad in dishonor; 
to think on the ruin of his life-work and on the eternal years! 
Again, a decisive battle is won. Science herself is still the 
handmaiden of Religion, thus leaving the old story of the crea- 
tion of the world holding control over the fortress of human 
knowledge. 

Yet there is no security in Haeckel's disgrace! His doc- 
trines are not thereby discredited with the masses. Indeed 
the knowledge of it does not reach them, much less the import 
of it. While the spreading — world-wide — of his false dates and 
his false diagiams supply the working class with the arms for 
a renewal of the centuries' old conflict. So the belief that 
evolution has dealt the knock-out blow to Almighty God is 
calling into the socialist camp hundreds of thousands who 
know little of religion and nothing of science. This belief has 
already a deadly grip upon popular literature, and it is fast 
converting public opinion. Worst of all its poisonous fangs are 
sunk deep into the text books of our public schools. So it 
seems that our century shall see a widespread attack upon 
right-reason. Not merely by the numberless "intellectuals" 
who are against Christ, but also by the working men from all 
countries who unite to fight for the abolition of the wages-sys- 
tem by the means of a political party. Whatever in civilization 
rests upon true and tried principles — upon the authority of 
the Giver of every good and perfect gift, — these allied hosts 
would sweep away. Truly "a little knowledge is a dangerous 
thing." 



Morally Irresponsible. 

"Iago: 

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. 
Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our 
wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant 
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up 
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or 
distract it with many, either to have it sterile 
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, 
the power and corrigible authority of this lie- 
in our wills. ". 

THE reappearance of an age-worn fallacy, materialism,, 
which now takes political form with the advent of the 
socialist party must be met at once upon civil and religious 
ground. For the natural and logical result of the teachings 
of the "materialistic conception of history" is the denial of free 
agency. Thus does "economic determinism" strike a fatal 
blow at that attribute of human nature which holds man above 
the animal impressions to which he is cosmically subject. For 
its root lies deep down in the denial of Creative Power — of 
Original Design — of God. "Class-consciousness" is primarily 
an attack upon free-will — upon personal responsibility, second- 
arily it is an attack upon the natural rights of man. Here 
then is religious ground. Yet " class-consciousness" is an or- 
ganized force, under the red banner, hence the attack is also 
upon the fundamental principles upon which our great nation 
is founded, and too upon the organic structure of our civil so- 
ciety, placing the emphasis of its destructive power upon the 
economic divisions thereof. 

A leading socialist giving expression to the "class-con- 
scious" dissatisfaction, which is prevalent especially in the 
east, with Walter Thomas Mills' lessons on "Social Economy," 
writes: 

"I was astonished to find that his very first lesson contained two 
fallacious teachings on questions of fundamental importance to what we 
term scientific socialism, vis: first, the teaching of a design in nature 



Morally Irresponsible. 8r 

(hence a designer); second, the teaching that men have inalienable or 
natural rights. 

"As to the first, I will advance no argument beyond the statement 
that it is totally at variance with the teachings of modern science. The 
importance of refusing to sanction it in a work on scientific socialism lies 
in the fact that when we get involved in intricate sociological questions 
we find that our main or basic arguments, and indeed our general views, 
depend upon our ultimate philosophic conceptions. For example: 
Without the materialistic conception of history, socialist political economy 
would not be scientific since it would have no relation established between 
cause and effect. But a materialistic conception of history is dependent 
upon a materialistic philosophy, hence it conflicts with idealistic doctrines. 

"The second fallacy: The doctrine of natural rights is one that 
probably more than any other distinguishes the old academic metaphysical 
school of political economy from the modern scientific school. It is a 
fallacy that is refuted by all the teachings of history, and no person with 
any valid claim to a knowledge of scientific socialism would teach it. It 
implies that conditions are changed by a recognition of rights, i. e., by 
ethical teaching, and not by superior force exerted in the interest of classes 
favored by economic conditions. To permit the teaching of such doctrine 
is to vitiate the movement by destroying its class conscious and sternly 
revolutionary character." (The Chicago Socialist, July 11, 1903.) 

The writer gives clearly the creed held by socialists the 
world over. He voices clearly, too, the necessity of keeping 
the socialist creed free from admixture with the demands of 
either the old or the New Testatment. Socialist followers are 
true to "class-consciousness" only so long as they repudiate 
the notion that religious motives have had, in any degree, the 
shaping of human history. For the "truth" to the "class- 
conscious" mind is that only a "superior force" from the ma- 
terial standpoint has or will avail in moving men to deeds, 
in which free choice and free-will, play no part. In one word, 
life is mechanical motion, nothing more, nothing less, the hu- 
man mind itself being a mere "mode of motion." Superior 
force caused the Christian crusades, and it is the one reason 
why men take up their cross and follow in their Master's foot- 
steps, say these bluffers at modern science. For God is the 
author neither of nature nor of man — He merely isn't. In 
practice, consequently, because men have no natural rights, 
along with their other gifts from God, they have no legal rights. 

In place of natural rights and civil rights and duties which 
have been supposed to exist all these centuries socialism is SO 



82 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

good as to permit privileges and miseries. The "superior 
force" of the most powerful class — or that of the socialist ma- 
jority — gives to the miserables what privileges it pleases, and 
reserves to itself what privileges its "superior force" can re- 
tain. There is no moral law— no Ten Commandments because 
they " are totally at variance with the teachings of modern 
science," no argument is necessary, the denial of original de- 
sign is "the easiest way" — -the way downward to the den of 
the devils. 

The Call (3-1 5-1 909) ought to know what socialism thinks, 
and it does. For it thinks just what the ' 'Communist Manifesto" 
thinks; and what The Call thinks it thinks is the thought of 
the socialist proletariat of America. And this The. Call thinks 
because it does not, cannot or will not think upon the ground 
of reason that : 

"The theory of natural rights is a figment of the immature capitalist 
brain. Now, having got rid of feudalism and having learned to under- 
stand the process of evolution, organic and social, and to know the meaning 
of the word 'nature' all thoughtful persons know that there are no natural 
rights, that the phrase 'natural rights' is a contradiction in terms, that 
rights are something established in historical conflicts, won by struggle 
with those who claim natural or divine authority or who assert their own 
personal or class will against the needs of society." 

Yet, perhaps, after all its thought The Call does not think 
with that profundity of thought with which the makers, not 
of the universe itself, but only of that far greater work — the 
"Communist Manifesto :' ' 

"The famous 'Communist Manifesto' was written by Marx and 
Engles nearly sixty-three years ago. It was the first systematic pro- 
mulgation of the general theories, principles and policies of Modern 
Socialism. It was, at one and the same time, a scientific treatise, a 
masterpiece of polemics,, a general plan of campaign, and the battle cry 
of the awakening young giant — the modern proletariat. Its terse brevity, 
its compact force, its depth and its breadth, its mordant satire and its 
defiant eloquence give it a unique place in the grand literature of the 
world. In the literature of socialism it is the supreme classic.'- (The 
Call 12-13, 1911). 

As its "brevity" must omit the thoughts that are an old- 
fashioned necessity to thought, the whole world, besides those 



Morally Irresponsible. 83 

who are to come after, must think themselves under obliga- 
tion to Engels for the thought that up is neither up nor down, 
and for the still brighter thought that the Ten Commandments 
are truly — hope to die — drop down dead — cross your throat- 
out of date. This thought of thoughts is with a most dazzling 
thought thought out in "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism" (p. 
1*8). 

" From the very moment when private property in movables 
developed there had to be ethical sanctions of general effect 
in all communities in which private property prevailed, thus: 
Thou shalt not steal. Is this commandment, then, an eternal 
commandment? By no means. In a society in which the 
motive for theft did not exist, stealing would only be the prac- 
tice of the weak-minded, and the preacher of morals who pro- 
claimed 'Thou shalt not steal' as an eternal Commandment 
would only be laughed at for his pains." 

If the proletariat were not responding to their instruc- 
tions to laugh at eternal truths; were not acting upon the be- 
lief that what the possessing classes forbid, the confiscation 
of private property which they steal, those things are bad; what 
they permit, having a tandem family which workmen cannot 
afford, those things are good, this topsy-turvy philosophy 
might be merely funny. For it is certain that in a society 
where there were nobody and nothing there were no motive to 
steal. But happily we are folks, and happily and unhappily 
there are things which may be stolen. Though we all 
know what we should do and should not do, for God's 
commands are laid upon us, implicitly and explicitly. As 
Christians we know what we should do, for Christ has com- 
manded "Come, follow Me." We know that we are responsible 
morally, for we are our brother's keeper. While in His eco- 
nomic parables our dear Lord lays down for our practice in 
all times, in all places, under all circumstances, the principles 
of commercial justice softened by Christian generosity. But 
the "greater" than our Lord God has said: 

"My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation 
of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other 
make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially 
remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.*' 
("Capital," page 15, Chicago 1906.) 



84 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children, 

This is philosophy. But here is also the application, the 
Socialist Party has adopted my standpoint so logically to 450,000 
voters in this, our nation, greed is no longer a shame and a 
sin but a mere action of ' 'superior force," as: 

"The capitalist class, in its mad race for profits, is bound to exploit 
the workers to the very limit of their endurance and to sacrifice their 
physical, moral and mental welfare to its own insatiable greed." 
("Socialist Party Platform,'' 1908.) 

The cry of the labourers hath not entered into the ears 
of the Lord of Sabaoth, nor shall rich men weep and howl in 
the miseries which shall come upon them, for no man is his 
brother's keeper; because the "mad race for profits" is only 
a passing incident of the "class-struggle" for which nobody 
is responsible. Of course this kind of wickedness is not new, 
though the particular socialist form of it is modern. The 
denial of natural rights and the denial of the existence of de- 
sign in nature is as old as time. A century ago it found vio- 
lent expression in the French revolution. The denialists of 
those days "abolished the soul," they set the goddess of reason 
on the throne of God and "adopted the guillotine as their 
symbol in place of the cross." The difference in methods, 
is the only difference between the denialists of to-day and the 
denialists of the 18th century. Man comes from the troglo- 
dyte, therefore he has no moral responsibility — no natural, 
no God-given rights. Man's human form is the result of the 
necessity in the case, therefore he has not free will. 

We will take the testimony of a competent socialist au- 
thority : 

"To the environment, in the last analysis, to the relations necessarily 
created by the multiple contacts, actions and reactions of the environ- 
ment and the environed are due all the transformations of all organisms, 
and, in consequence, all the phenomena that emanate from them.' I 
("Socialism, Revolution and Internationalism," by Gabriel Deville. 
New York, March 1901.) 

This clear, short statement embodies the basis for the 
ethical standards adopted by socialists in general. The truth 
of the matter is that it is not valid ground. For the simple 
reason that man himself, as an entity, to be environed by an 



Morally Irresponsible. 85 

environment is left wholly out of consideration. The ques- 
tion what ; is it which acts, and is acted upon, is of first import- 
ance. Haeckel gives up the ghost as to the "essence of mat- 
ter." But this ghost is precisely what we want to know. What 
is the essential of this thing, man ; what is the active principle 
clothed with matter; what is the life which claims its head, 
its heart, its hand; in short, its natural body? Surely each 
individual life is God's creation. Nothing in nature can 
account for the "essence of matter," yet everything in nature 
points to the Creator of life. 

Each individual retains his identity intact, while receiving 
impressions subconsciously and consciously from his environ- 
ment, local and cosmic, and at once impressing himself upon 
his environment. At least we shall not be warned off the ground 
of reason by the socialist failure to arrive at the vital point 
at issue by specious discussions alleged to be scientific any 
more than we shall be by coarse blasphemy. Neither has 
the power to move us. 

Engels says rightly ("Landmarks Scientific Socialism," 
p. 40) : 

"In order that a science can be made out of socialism it is first neces- 
sary that it be placed on a sound basis." 

Precisely! if economic society is to be dealt with scien- 
tifically, the entity man, the individual, and mankind the race, 
must be placed on a sound basis by a recognition of our Creator. 

The failure of Marx and Engels to gain a conception of 
eternity as other than an endless number of causes which have 
followed one another endlessly, is given as a sufficient reason 
to deny a Final Cause. But these gentlemen confuse creations 
by God's fiat with the processes, the phenomena by which 
nature unrolls the wonders of the world. With good-will 
and St. Augustine as their teachers, this insuperable difficulty 
of the socialist masters becomes soluable. It is so simple to 
see that up and down do not come one after the other, but 
at once. 

Having discarded the Final Cause, the socialist fathers 
were under the necessity of creating a basis for their science 
^hev must "prove" the non-rcsponsibilitv of the indivMunl 



86 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Can a man sin? No; there are no commands of God to 
sin against. 

Can a man commit crimes against society? No, because 
society — his social form — makes him to do whatever he does. 
What of independent action? He has none, being a mere 
cell of the social organism, just as his food digests according 
to a habit that somehow or other nature set up — nobody knows 
when — just so does his mind work. 

Is the individual man non-conscious? Yes, exactly; it 
was necessary that socialism be placed on a sound basis so 
it may be a "science." So the mass-man was made conscious 
somehow or other — the socialist fathers do not tell — and this 
consciousness overflows to the individual man. 

"It is not the conscious mind of man that determines the form of his 
being, but, vice versa, the social form of his being that determines the 
conscious action of his mind." ("Critique of Political Economy," Karl 
Marx.) 

Splendid! Society alone being conscious, society alone can 
commit crime, but as society is everybody, and there is no- 
body else, there is nobody to punish everybody. Really, 
perhaps, this were the easiest way to saddle our individual 
immorality upon the social body, but for the fact that the 
social organism itself has no way of keeping out of hell by get- 
ting rid of its sins. Then, too, Eternal Truths, which Marx 
and Engels have valiantly murdered, rise like Banquo's ghost, 
to sit at every banquet. But August Bebel shall murder them 
again: 

" . . . the realization of socialism does not imply arbitrary 
destruction and construction, but a process of historical evolution. All 
factors active in the process of destruction, on the one hand, and in the 
process of construction on the other, act as they are bound to act. 
Neither 'brillant statesmen' nor 'demagogues who incite the people,' can 
direct matters at their will. They believe that they are pushing, and 
are being pushed themselves.". (Page 500, "Woman and Socialism.") 

All pushey and no pulley, alle sarnie go like hellie, for Free- 
will is out of commission. Self-effort is entirely unavailing, 
because there is no such thing, for Fatalism is in the saddle. 
Thus: 



Morally Irresponsible. 87 

"Political or scientific theories are natural phenomena and not the 
capricious and ephemeral products of the free wills of those who construct 
and propagate them. '5 ("Socialism and Modern Science, 1 ! Enrico Ferri.) 

Socialism is a "natural phenomena." Well, it is builded 
up by men who are not responsible for their capricious 
and ephemeral product. Again, well. This being so, the issue 
of our day and generation brings responsible men face to face 
with irresponsible men as to the use of public power. 

If man is not endowed with free will — if he be not free 
to choose between two courses of action, why hold criminals 
responsible for crimes committed? If the power to use one's 
faculties as one may determine, be not a privilege granted to 
man by his Creator, why establish deliberative bodies to en- 
act public sentiment, public opinion, public judgment into 
law? 

Why, indeed ! If society is the criminal, not the individual, 
— open the doors of the prisons and set the thieves and the 
murderers free — set them free to roam where they will. 

Yet murderers and thieves are sweet company, when De- 
cency must view the classic program which shall later on lead 
to the "reversion" of the Christian family to the spontaneous 
matrimonial unions of monkey tribes. Be it never so scien- 
tifically proposed by irresponsible men for utilitarian purposes 
this way of creating a "healthier" cell in place of an honest 
family, is too foul for the slime of hell. We quote : 

"The right of freely dissolving the marriage tie, which was recognized 
in primitive society, has been gradually replaced by the absolute formulae 
of theology and mysticism which fancy that the 'free will' can settle the 
destiny of a person by a monosyllable pronounced at a time when the 
physical equilibrium is as unstable as it is during courtship and at marriage. 
Later on the reversion to the spontaneous and primitive form of a union 
based on mutual consent imposes itself on men, and the matrimonial • 
union, with the increase in the frequency and facility of divorce, reverts to • 
its original forms and restores to the family, that is to say, to the social 
cell a healthier constitution.'! ("Socialism and Modern Science," page 
J03-) 

To put this socialist doctrine into simple English: One 
but entertains himself with the idea of free will, it is not " sci- 
entific." With the increase in the frequency and facility of 



88 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

divorce — with religious restraints broken — the practice of 
free love will restore to society a healthier set of men, women 
and children who in nowise are supposed to know who their 
parents are. 

If one be not free to will to follow the lusts of his flesh — 
if one be not free to will to follow the aspirations of his soul, 
why then, to strive to purify the body and elevate the mind 
by overcoming temptation is merest moonshine. Why ex- 
ercise self-control — why discipline one's sex passions? Why, 
indeed? "Sex fondness" is the standard of sex purity by the 
socialist criterion, or nothing is pure because nothing is im- 
pure, for God is not and personal morality is nill. Of course 
those innocent "proletarian comrades" who insist upon being 
at once socialists and Christians are not expected to tell just 
what this means : 

"The new morality must proclaim war to the knife with this abstract 
morality centering in the individual." . . . "The perfection of the 
individual, not through himself but through society, is the motto of 
modern socialism and this doctrine involves a complete inversion of the 
traditional ethical theory.'! ("The Problems of Reality,'! Bax.) 

To accomplish a complete inversion of sound ethics were 
a teeny-weeny task after the boast that "the last notion of an 
extra-mundane Creator is destroyed." For if common sense 
were stood on its head, although it were in a ridiculous po- 
sition, it were still extant; but as the "new morality" is no 
morality, it is neither in nor out of place. 

The "new morality" is degeneracy of mind and degre- 
dation of the spirit, and although it has in reason and in wis- 
dom no right to exist, it is gathering power for destruction 
every day in the year. 

By its scientific jargon socialism has made the only con- 
scious man to be the "class-conscious* ' man, and besides, be- 
ing non-moral and non-responsible he, poor thing, is conscious 
that he is not conscious of what he is truly conscious : Namely, 
that he is revealed to himself as endowed with a rational na- 
ture, together with its necessary complement, free wilL Be- 
sides, he knows that he can choose freely between good and 
other good relatively; also, between absolute good and bad 



Morally Irresponsible. 89 

positively. Being conscious that he is free to choose, his rea- 
son and experience shows him that he has the power to set 
out towards a definite object, good or bad, but because he is 
conscious of his moral responsibility he is aware that he has 
the right to set out only after what is good. Having the power 
to choose and the right to choose only the good, he is conscious 
that his free choice were without rational purpose if his will 
were not free to choose. Lacking free will he were non- 
conscious, non-rational and non-moral, truly an unthinkable 
state. 

Karl Kautsky in his book "The Road to Power," states in 
part the issue. He discusses not the necessity of free will as 
the complement of our rational nature, but dealing with prob- 
lems of economic phenomena, Kautsky shows that with free 
will existing there is no basis for socialism because conces- 
sions from capitalists can be made by acts of their will. 
This book of Kautsky 's received the following editorial com- 
mendation from the Chicago Daily Socialist (5-4-1909). 

"We have no hesitation in saying that this little work will be at once 
accepted as the very best general statement of the up-to-date socialist 
position in existence. It is the final summary by the man who is recog- 
nized as the foremost living Marxian scholar." 

"The Road to Power" after contrasting the socialist doctrine 
of blind force — all events being determined by natural neces- 
sity, void of Original Design — not with the robust, common 
sense of Christian philosophy, but with a Kantian variety of 
pantheism, which illogically enough permits of a creative 
role of tremendous importance to living men, takes its stand 
against free will. It argues that free will permits of conces- 
sions to the working class by capitalists and thus a gradual 
growth into a better economic regime. Hence free will could 
be the determining factor in retaining private capital, as op- 
posed to the Marxian dictum that "capitalism" is doomed to 
crush itself by its top-heavy strength. We quote : 

"But this free will that is to bring about the 'gradual growth' really 
means its abolition. If the will is free and can shape things as it wishes, 
then it can also shape as it wishes the direction of economic development 
Then it is absolutely impossible to discover any guarantee that we are 



90 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

growing into socialism. It is, moreover, impossible to determine any line 
of historical development whatsoever, and no scientific knowledge of 
society is possible." 

Aye, truly, every theory and every practice which separates 
mankind from the knowledge and the providence of God neces- 
sarily ends in despair. 



Political Atheism. 

"Reason and experience, both forbid us to 
expect that national morality can prevail 
where religious principles are excluded.". 

George Washington. 

THE volume of atheistical literature in circulation within 
the socialist propaganda is stupendous! Underlying 
the political attack upon the economic system there lies the 
determined purpose of uprooting institutions having as their 
basis revealed religion. 

The reader's attention is kindly called to our purpose of 
giving here the authoritative decrees of socialism rather than to 
give an argument in defense of religion, only in so far as it is 
necessary to uphold right reason, thus we keep within the scope 
of Christian civilization. 

The tactics of socialism are elusive, to say the least; one 
may turn one page of its popular literature, finding there 
a declaration against religion, and another to find the asser- 
tion that socialism has nothing to do with religion. Though, 
upon reading its classical literature, there is no exception what- 
soever as to the advocacy of a materialist basis of history, which 
is more or less coherently set forth. It is indeed a commonplace 
to hear that " socialism is my religion" from those whose zeal 
in the work is worthy of a good cause. In all our years of 
experience within the socialist party we have known but two 
or three devout Christians and no orthodox Jews to retain mem- 
bership in the organization. If men of some little faith came 
in, it was soon broken down or they left the movement. The 
old German members, who launched the socialist organization 
in this country, having imbibed atheism with their beer at home, 
cannot hear the name of God without giving expression to 
contempt. Their hatred of devotion in Christian or Jew knows 
no bounds; their disgust at church attendance is undisguised. 
There is now, eight years later, no change in the nature of the 
movement, although it now (191 1) bespeaks itself perversely, 



92 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

both with brilliancy and with elegance, for many of the leading 
literati are enrolled as its members. Moreover the popular 
writers of the country generally accept with complacency the 
philosophy of socialism. 

James Leatham, a prominent English socialist, frankly 
gives voice to the irreligious character of the movement. I 
quote :— 

"At the present moment I cannot remember a single instance of a 
person who is at one and the same time a really earnest and intelligent 
socialist and an orthodox Christian. Those who do not openly attack the 
Church and the fabric of Christianity show but scant respect to either 
the one or the other in private. . . . And while all of us are thus 
indifferent to the Church, many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx, 
Lassalle and Engels, among earlier socialists; Morris, Bax, Hyndman, 
Guesde and Bebel among present-day socialists — are all more or less 
avowed atheists ; and what is true of the more notable men of the party 
is almost equally true of the rank and file the world over." ("Socialism 
and Character," 1897.) 

Its deeds speak as loudly as its words. There is no room 
for socialist leaders who retain much of any Christian faith. 
They who are not scientific are disposed of with a surprising 
swiftness of dispatch. How? 

If any man Eugene V. Debs should be trusted to set forth 
the movement at its best. In commenting upon the death of 
Father Thomas McGrady the cause of a broken heart was given. 
We believe this to be true, but not so much because of the envy 
of his comrades, which even Mr. Debs does not see as an 
appropriate means for keeping pure the gospel of hate, if the word 
pure may be allowed in atheistical company, as because of his 
betrayal of his holy office. We quote: — 

"With all the intense ardor and firery nature of his race Father 
McGrady threw himself into the socialist movement. . . . The 
country rang with his name and fame. 

"Then came an opposition for which he was not prepared; an opposi- 
tion that cut him to the quick, the very same (italics ours) that had driven 
many another bright mind and devoted soul from the socialist move- 
ment. 

"The envy his success inspired found expression in dark hints that he 
had turned to socialism to 'make money out of it,' a falsehood at once so 
flagrant and malicious that no language is sufficient to characterize it. 
Narrow minded and prejudiced persons within the movement . . . 



Political Atheism. 93 

began to attack Father McGrady upon the alleged ground that he was not 
'scientific' . . . and for other equally false and silly reasons." {Com- 
ment, by Eugene V. Debs, Wayland's Monthly, Dec. 1907.) 

Such comment is not easy to understand save one reads the 
socialist movement below its superficial area. There, the rea- 
sons for the opposition which cut the ex-priest to the quick and 
drove " devoted souls" out of the movement are seen not to be 
"silly" although they are "false." It is not silly to defend a 
vicious system of thought, it is wicked. For its reasons must 
be false to right thinking and to right conduct. The one only 
defense of this "very same" opposition is found in the sermon 
on the Cross, " Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
do." 

Mr. Debs being the agitator per se, not the author of doc- 
trinal treaties, quite underrates the meaning of the onslaught 
against his friend. It was in its own self-defense. 

However much personal envy there was of his success 
displayed by Mr. John Spargo and other national leaders, the 
fact is that Father McGrady's socialism is not "scientific" as 
his writings will show any man competent to judge. His 
Catholic philosophy still colored the weightier half of his so- 
cialist opinions, making for himself a little socialism all his 
own. So it was just because "eager thousands thronged to 
hear" Father McGrady that his leadership was greatly feared. 
The self same priestly eloquence which could bring a Catholic 
proletarian into the socialist camp could not be trusted to lead 
this following on to complete atheist victory. The break might 
come at an hazardous time and so annihilate the gathering force 
of economic determinism. The risk can, of course be safely 
taken with petty leaders but not with a man of so great personal 
gifts as the late Father Thomas McGrady. 

There are relative to the number of men but few women 
propagandists, though their "scientific" opposition to religion, 
however, is not to be outdone by mere man. Bertha W. Howe 
is convinced that religious beliefs are destined to perish by 
atrophy. Because, — of course, something is added — the inevi- 
tableness of socialism makes necessary the ultimate disappearance 
of religion. Big words these, yet they rest in the "socialist 
mind " securely upon Marx's discovery of surplus value, Which 



94 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

discovery in its turn rests securely upon a unit of insecurity itself, 
namely, a unit of human labor power in the abstract. For labor 
to be labor must be the work of one or more persons upon a 
specific task. If the worker had not a specific task in hand 
whether alone hoeing corn up in the Aroostook or one of a gang 
working upon the most trivial and menial diversion of the Panama 
cut, it makes no difference, each man must work out a labor 
design in whole or in part. The lady evidently understands 
socialist doctrine better than the tactics of her party, for she 
complains that inconsistency is not a means to its progress — 
progress towards the end of Christian civilization. We quote :— 

"One Comrade wrote that the only way to reach the church members 
was to first break their prejudices and convince them that socialism is 
not against their religion! 

*'What nonsense is this? Socialism is a theory of the evolution of 
human institutions, and is based not only upon history, scientifically 
interpreted, but upon the achievements of natural science as well. What 
picayune tactics, them, for such a movement, so based, to parley with the 
adherents of any creed or religion and promise them immunity from the 
results of scientific investigation? Socialism is either scientific, and 
therefore self-sufficient and inevitable, or it is unscientific and a mere 
nostrum. 

"There is nothing to be gained by holding out any false hopes that a 
study of socialism does not tend to undermine religious beliefs. The 
theory of economic determinism alone, if thoroughly grasped, leaves no 
room for a belief in the supernatural." {The Call, 3-2, 191 1 .) 

However, mere man shall have his say, and Edward B. 
Aveling, a leader of the atheist and socialist movements of Great 
Britain during the last decades of the nineteenth century, being 
the best of authority, testified : 

"Marx was an avowed atheist. And those who desire to know the 
scientific reasons for the materialism of Marx, Engels, Bebel, Leibknecht, 
Guesde, Laf argue, Adler, Plechanoff — in a word, of all the founders and 
teachers of scientific socialism — should read the whole of the introduction 
written by Frederick Engels in 1892 to my translation of his 'Socialism, 
Scientific and Utopian.'" ("Charles Darwin and Karl Marx: a Com- 
parison.") 

Wilhelm Leibknecht puts the doctrine in his "Materialist 
Basis of History" into the language which the proletariat can 
understand : — 



Political Atheism. 95 

"It is our duty as socialists to root out the faith in God with all our 
zeal, nor is any one worthy the name who does not consecrate himself to 
the spread of atheism.'! 

John Graham Brooks gives it as his opinion, in his book 
entitled "Social Unrest," that this statement of Leibknecht's 
may be duplicated, substantially, from twenty authoritative 
socialist sources. 

Leibknecht was a little later taught, by experience, that 
direct attacks upon religion was not good politics. At the 
Halle Congress he said : 

"Instead of squandering our strength m a struggle with the Church 
and sacerdotalism, let us go to the root of the matter. We desire to over- 
throw the State of the classes. When we have done that the Church and 
sacerdotalism will fall with it, and in this respect we are much more radical 
and much more definite in purpose than our opponents, for we like neither 
the priests nor the anti-priests." 

August Bebel, also an avowed atheist, recognized the neces- 
sity for. different tactics than those employed by the French 
revolutionists. In discussing the assassination of the Empress 
of Austria, Bebel is, by the Weekly People (4-25-1908), reported 
to have said, "The gentlemen have no more faith than I have; 
that is none at all. ' ' He declares that by the capture of the 
public powers the "dethronement of religion" shall be brought 
to pass, inevitably. We quote, ("Woman and Socialism," p. 
437): ... -~.~ ■ . 

"As with the state, so it will be with religion. It will not be 
'abolished.' God will not be 'dethroned,' people will not be 'robbed of 
their faith,' as all the foolish arguments are worded that are directed 
against atheistic socialists. Such follies socialists leave to bourgeois 
idealists who attempted such measures during the French Revolution, 
and, of course, failed utterly. Without any forcible attack or expres- 
sion of opinions, of whatever nature they may be, the religious organiza- 
tions will gradually disappear and the churches with them. 

"Religion is the transcendental reflection of the social condition of 
every age. In the measure in which human development progresses and 
society is transformed, religion is transformed likewise. 'Religion,' says 
Marx [Critic of the 'Philosophy of Law' by Hegel], 'is the striving of the 
people for an imaginary happiness ; it springs from a state of society that 
requires an illusion, but disappears when the recognition of true happiness 
and the possibility of its realization penetrates the masses.' " 



96 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

An experience of over forty years was made before the choler 
of the atheist-socialist German movement became sufficiently 
cool for them to recognize the fact that direct attack upon the 
religious belief of citizens retarded their political growth, and 
that a masked attack was therefore the best policy. It was at 
the Erfurt Congress (1891) that a resolution declaring religion 
to be a private matter was passed. No. 6 of immediate demands 
of the Social Democratic Program, reads as follows : — 

"Declaration that religion is a private matter. Abolition of all 
contributions from public funds to ecclesiastical and religious objects. 
Ecclesiastical and religious communities are to be treated as private 
associations, which manage their affairs quite independently.". 

Those Germans who can in their study evolve the elephant 
from their inner-consciousness are quite capable of evolving 
tactics to suit socialist minds. From this date (1891), mas- 
querading as a political party, atheism has made much more rapid 
progress than by its direct propaganda. Especially with regard 
to the control of the public schools both in Europe and America. 

Taking as their guide the tactics of their foreign comrades, 
the socialist conventions of the United States have passed similar 
resolutions to that of the Erfurt congress on religion; with per- 
sistent iteration it is declared by those who know better and by 
a multitude who do not— though it is a certain self -blindness 
which keeps the truth from them — that religion is a private 
matter. So it comes about that a very aggressive political party 
is the best proof of the truth of this falsehood which American 
socialists have to offer the inquiring public. 

When to the Massachusetts socialist convention (1902), 
we presented a resolution which called for the official disqualifi- 
cation of those speakers who attacked theological dogmas and 
doctrine, the convention, running to cover for the nonce, passed 
a counter resolution declaring religion to be a matter of private 
opinion. 

How strange that a political party should be forced to make 
this declaration ! How strange that this should be " the modern 
scientific revolutionary" method of disposing of this question? 
The science of dodging the issue on religion when it is good poli- 
tics to do so is the most accomplished of all the "sciences" 



Political Atheism. 97 

attempted by the Marxian school of applied atheism. If re- 
ligion were in truth merely a personal matter no declaration of a 
political party were needed to establish it as such. But because 
God is the Author of nations, as well as the Creator of the indivi- 
dual man, both the man and the state have direct obligations 
to carry out the commands of our Lord and our God, and this 
is practical religion, personal and social. 

The socialist party is, with no possible mistake about it, an 
organized attempt to capture the ship of state to the end that 
religious institutions be secularized. It is an assault issuing 
from the gates of hell! God grant it prevail not over our great 
nation ! But to be secure in danger is a vice that has sunk many 
a man down to the bottomless pit, and undermined the greatest 
of nations. 

And such is the danger which confronts the American 
people — aye, the danger which confronts civilization. 

We challenge socialists on this ground : Prove the honesty 
of your resolution which carries with it the inference that you 
do not intend to interfere with the convictions, the doctrines of 
the religious; act up to your declarations by putting a stop to 
the circulation of the books written by the founders and pro- 
moters of the socialist movement; after which adopt additional 
resolutions denouncing the materialist philosophy of Marx, 
Engels, Deitzgen, Bebel, Loria, Bax, Labriola, Ferri and all 
other socialist authorities. Or, as Savonarola made a flaming 
pile of the vanities of his time, so socialists might spread a purify- 
ing influence over their followers by making a flaming pile of 
those abominations which drug the human mind. 

No, this cannot be done; it would be equal to the complete 
overthrow of the socialist movement! To act like courageous 
men is not the part of willful blindness, the courage of despera- 
tion—the part of Macbeth — this is the part that political athe- 
ism must take against organized society, for it is a vicious aping 
of noble deeds that defends the gates of hell. 

Enrico Ferri has set plainly down the reason why the 
Erfurt congress (1891) held religion to be a private affair; and, 
too, why the opposing " narcotic" atheism, the disenchantment 
of religion, shall let loose the wild beasts at the bidding of the 
socialist instrument of political domination. We quote: — 



98 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

"Socialism knows and foresees that religious beliefs, whether one 
regards them with Sergi, as pathological phenomena of human psychology, 
or as useless phenomena of moral incrustation, are destined to perish by 
atrophy with the extension of even elementary scientific culture. This is 
why socialism does not feel the necessity of waging a special warfare 
against these religious beliefs which are destined to disappear. It has 
assumed this attitude, although it knows that the absence or the im- 
pairment of the belief in God is one of the most powerful factors for its 
extension, because the priests of all religions have been, throughout all 
the phases of history, the most potent allies of the ruling classes in keeping 
the masses pliant and submissive under the yoke by means of the enchant- 
ment of religion, just as the tamer keeps wild beasts submissive by the 
terrors of the crack of his whip. 

"And this is so true that the most clear-sighted conservatives, even 
though they are atheists, regret that the religious sentiment — that precious 
narcotic— is diminishing among the masses, because they see in it, though 
their pharisaism does not permit them to say it openly, an instrument of 
political domination,'* ("Socialism and Modern Science," pages 62-63.) 

We shall show that the socialists of France are not behind 
those of Germany and Italy in their insistence that religion 
shall be a private matter. We quote from the platform of the 
French Socialist Party adopted at Tours, March, 1902 (out of 
the 47 socialist members of the. Chamber of Deputies, 35 be- 
long to this division of the French movement.) 

"The socialist party needs, to organize the new world, free minds, 
emancipated from superstitions and prejudices. It asks for and guarantees 
every human being, every individual, absolute freedom of thinking, and 
writing, and affirming their beliefs. Over against all religions, dogmas, 
and churches, as well as over against the class conceptions of the bour- 
geoisie, it sets the unlimited right of free thought, the scientific conception 
of the universe, and a system of public education based exclusively on 
science and reason. 



Complete Secularization of the State. 

1 "Separation of the Churches and the State; aboli- 
tion of the Budget of Public Worship; freedom of 
public worship; prohibition of the political and 
collective action of the churches against the civil 
laws and republican liberities. 

2 * " Abolition of the congregations, nationalization of 
the property in mortmain, of every kind, belonging 
to them, and appropriation of it for works of social 



Political Atheism. 99 

insurance and solidarity; in the interval, all in- 
dustrial, agricultural, and commercial undertakings 
are to be forbidden to the congregations.' 

"Thus accustomed to free thought and reflection, 
citizens will be protected against the sophistries of 
the capitalistic and clerical reaction." 

Poor France! unhappy France! So insistent has political 
atheism been that religion shall be a "private" matter that 
La belle France is now quite bedizened. 

Although the marks of her self-evident degredation are 
plainly upon her, The Worker (N. Y., 4-7-1906) exults in this 
political carrion which was thrown out to gorge the Beast 
in 300 districts in which socialist candidates were nominated 
for the Chamber of Deputies, we quote: 

"Free- thinking men, resolved to emancipate human societies from all 
clerical tutelage, to free the mind from all tyranny, you will proclaim to all 
that freedom of thought is actually suppressed in a social system which 
puts the conscience of the workers at the mercy of the owners and which 
reducing the toilers to the status of mere passive instruments of produc- 
tion, denies them the daily use of their intellectual powers." 

It is common for those propagandists who make socialism 
to be what the tactics of the occasion require it to be, to chal- 
lenge their opponents to show a statement in any party plat- 
form of the world, of course— socialism being fond of the ultra — 
that is hostile to religion. At the Linz convention (reported 
in VorwartSy 126) the Austrian Socialist Party made its con- 
fession of faith : 

"We doubt all authority, we know of no immutable dogma, we are 
the champions of right, liberty and conscience.'! 

While so long ago as 1899, at the Madrid Convention, the 
Spanish Socialist party resolved : 

"To expel any comrade who supported positive religion." 

Surely any sensible man knows that a party platform 
merely puts in brief the cause for and the aim of the organized 
effort, as Liebknecht in "Socialism" (p. 35) says a socialist plat- 
form "cannot , . . be a commentary. The agitators, the 



ioo Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

journalists and the learned of the party must give the 
commentary." 

The best possible "commentary" on the plank in the So- 
cialist Party of this country (1908) which declares that the 
party is not "concerned" with religion, is the dissension of the 
delegate body at the time of its adoption. We give it in part 
in our chapter on Tactics. 

Indeed, socialists here are not behind those of Italy and 
other foreign countries in their appreciation of the use of re- 
ligion — a-private-matter-narcotic. Though a writer in The 
Call (12-24-1910) begs to differ in opinion with those so drugged. 

"It has been repeatedly reiterated by Comrades, who would no doubt 
grant any concession to the host of unconverted in order to drag them into 
the socialist movement, that socialism has nothing whatever to do with 
religion. In fact, there is a clause in our party platform specifically stat- 
ing so, in unmistakable words. However, I would, with all due respect 
to our theologically minded Comrades' feelings and beliefs, beg to differ 
by claiming that socialism, viewed in its wider, broader aspect, in the 
light of evolution, would forever destroy the church naturally. 

"Socialism is infinitely greater and grander than our Comrades, the 
Christian Socialists, suppose it to be. It is not only a struggle to amelio- 
rate conditions to-day, but it is the revolutionary climax to the evolu- 
tion in ethics, religion, economic and political conditions which is now 
going on. Socialism would bring, along with its economic change, a 
change in religion, for the religion of any given body of people is deter- 
mined, if not directly, at least indirectly, by the economic conditions pre- 
vailing. Thus, our present religious beliefs, are fostered and prevented 
from swift decay by capitalism. 

"The deterioration of the church can be seen on every hand: its 
power is waning, as witnessed by the expulsion of the 'black frocked 
sanctimonious thieves' from France, Portugal and, tomorrow, Spain. 
And when the day comes that the socialist forces triumph, together with 
the cankering hulk of capitalism will sink that still older and more 
retrogressive inveterate sinner, the church." 

This playing into "our enemies" hands by Comrade Harold 
Rappaport did not create a storm of protest as he had pre- 
dicted. Why? For the simple reason that there is little if 
any dissent from his opinion. The men who are in control 
of the party machinery keep the movement on the tracks which 
Marx and Engels laid down for it to run on. Certainly we well 
understand the self-complacent attitude of mind with which 



Political Atheism. ioi 

a natural leader here and there views such a declaration. Hav- 
ing more faith in God, abstractly conceived, than attained 
capacity for philosophical judgment, it is assumed that the 
church may go to the bow-wows and religion remain. Which 
is no more sensible than to assume that the country may go 
to the dogs and patriotism keep its state, or that the ego could 
hold its accustomed place amongst men with its body gone up 
in smoke. 

Besides, the Christian Socialists (sic) are in an organ- 
ization by themselves — just a little poodle to the class-con- 
scious, so if any man of force essays to take a hand in the affairs 
of the party proper, he must mind his manners. He is per- 
mitted neither to interfere with its theoretical atheism nor 
its practical setting up of sex freedom along the socialist way. 
The Rev. E. E. Carr is making the experience — by his under- 
taking to clean the Augean stables — that the Turk will tolerate 
nobody near his harem. However, all unwittingly, no doubt, 
Mr. Carr has rendered political atheism a very large service, 
for he has greatly extended the acre of the evil-one. More- 
over, he has cultivated the ground for the devil by a series of 
sex articles, which have for their foundation a "healthy animal- 
ism," as such cleanness exists only in the imagination of good 
people who become bad people as soon as the principle is self- 
applied. 

If Americans have forgotten that eternal vigilance is the 
price of our liberties, the congresses held by socialists of foreign 
birth and language should be a sufficient reminder to send pa- 
triots into the field of defense against political atheism, which 
is now a threatening cloud bigger than a man's hand. 

The New York Call (4-5-1911) gives the news of the day 
as follows : 

Italian Socialists Score the Church. 
Declare they are against the Emancipation of the Workers. 

"Utica, N. Y., April 4. — Churches of all denominations were placed 
under the ban of the Italian Socialist Federation of the United States at 
the closing session to-night of its National Congress, which has been in 
session for the last three days, in this city. Strongly worded resolutions, 
charging all churches with being against the 'emancipation of the working 



102 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

class, and for the protection and perpetuation of capitalism and moral 
and economic slavery,' were unanimously adopted amid vociferous 
applause. By the adoption of these resolutions, all members of the fed- 
eration must 'sever their affiliation with any and all existing churches 
and religious organizations, and to refrain from all religious practices and 
rites.' 

"In an impassioned speech in behalf of the above resolution, A. M. 
Giovanitti, of New York, the editor of L'Proletario, the official organ of the 
federation, declared that the Almighty dollar was the god of those who 
determine the policy of every denomination. He said that the church 
has always stood for the powerful and greedy, and against the weak and 
down-trodden. 

"With dungeon, dagger, thumb screw and rack, he averred the 
Catholic Church has endeavored to convert the world, to the end that it 
could rule with an iron hand. The monster of feudalism, the divine right 
of kings, chattel slavery, and every other devise to make the many toil 
for the benefit of the few, he declared, had been defended by the church 
until it was forced to change its attitude by the force of revolutionary 
sentiment.' ' 

Of course the Catholic Church itself, rather than any of 
the sects, must stand the brunt of the battle. Although neither 
the divine right of kings is her doctrine, for Henry the 8th in- 
troduced that, nor chattel slavery, nor any other evil device. It 
is the mission of socialism to make Christianity a thing of dark- 
ness, for its own political atheism must appear to have changed 
places with the light of the Cross. Ah ! certainly, it is - not 
concerned" with religion, not surely concerned with its pro- 
motion. No, but greatly concerned with its destruction. With 
well-feigned indignation socialists say, religion is a private 
matter. Have we not declared it to be such by resolu- 
tions; why charge us with attacking the church and its teach- 
ings? It is a capitalist trick to throw discredit upon the work- 
ing class movement. Well, slander is expected from the Bene- 
dict Arnold's once in the party, they are necessary to the suc- 
cess of the movement. 

What this really means is that personal opposition ad- 
vertises the movement. As only the few will ever take part 
in its : doctrinal discussions, and as only the few are able to 
judge of the right and the wrong of the economic polemics, so 
of all persons it is especially necessary to vilify those who were 
once advocates of socialism, as the means of emancipating 



Political Atheism. 103 

wage-earners from the injustice and degredation which bad 
economic relationship thrusts upon them ; those who, after an 
exhaustive study of the movement found it to be the political 
sink pot of athestical philosophy, and so turned their energies 
to ridding our national life of this pest which promotes vile 
doctrines and manners in the name of liberty, equality and 
fraternity. 

A late instance serves to illustrate this point That thing 
dubbed Catholic Socialism was let loose by one who impu- 
dently takes up the mission of teaching his priest what 
socialism is, though he himself does not know. 

The uninitiated were puzzled to see the advantage to so- 
cialist propaganda by the publication {Social Democratic Herald, 
4-2 2-1 9 11) of the correspondence between a party member 
and the priest of the parish in which he resides, as the priest's 
reply is so plainly in the God-like spirit, and so clearly does 
it point to one of the many weak spots in the socialist's letter 
that nothing but ill-will could prevent any but the veriest dolt 
from seeing the sham. But at second sight, its socialist value 
is seen; by example it teaches workmen who are more or less 
at odds with their faith to make of themselves important so- 
cialists by becoming altogether bad Catholics. And by its 
vile attack upon Catholic converts it flaunts disobedience by 
refusing to receive instruction, recommended by the clergy, 
from those who are qualified to show that socialist propaganda 
is in fact nothing more nor less than practical atheism from 
a political standpoint. Hence, that no man can take his poli- 
tics from socialism, and his religion from Rome. There is 
no doubt about it, the socialist press is thoroughly well aware 
that any aid against the church from the traitors within the 
True Fold, albeit they themselves only half know the villiany 
they work, is a very important adjunct to the socialist cause. 

Mr. F. L's letter is given a double-column heading, A Catholic 
Socialist's Position. After a column or more of suppositious 
questions, F. L. has the amazing effrontery to write as follows : 

"Again, you may say, They want to enroll Christian people as party 
members, then convert them to their atheistic views.' If so, would they 
not have a classified list of their books or literature, in which athesitic 
writings predominate? 



104 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

" No one has ever heard of such a classification, even the erring Catholic 
clergy, who have fought the cause so bitterly, have never found such a 
classification, and the entire charge of religious opposition is pure bosh 
disseminated either by the ignorant or deliberate misrepresentators." 

This is astounding impudence, for the consultation of any 
one of the hundreds of lists of books printed in the socialist 
press will show that a classified list of "atheist writings" is pre- 
cisely what is recommended to those who would learn what 
socialism is. 

Yet this is not less palpably false than F. L's assertion that 
"socialists have no leaders." This being by the priest, pointed 
out as "absurd," who believes the writer to be honest, but 
woefully deceived. 

From his false generalities F. L. descends to the slander 
of persons, which seems to be the real object of his letter. Our 
church is sharply repremanded for: 

"Trotting around the country an escaped socialist, David Goldstein, 
the first of his kind and the worst of his breed. . . . The large sum 
of money paid to Goldstein . . . etc., . . . should have been 
devoted to relieving the condition complained of in your vicinity, and 
what is more important, have thus at least refrained from delaying the 
ushering into existence the cooperative commonwealth.". 

F. L. finds words black enough for painting Mr. Goldstein, 
but having bent himself to the task of scandalizing a woman, 
words break down, though the brunt of his assault falls upon 
Mrs. Martha Moore Avery. Upon her "escape" from the So- 
cialist Party Mrs. Avery was amply provided with a stock of 
secrets, economic and otherwise, to launch out upon the open 
sea of exchange, but this unspeakable woman : 

"Seems to have been withdrawn. Perhaps she was too raw even for 
those who are willing to soil their hands and desecrate their buildings with 
such a contemptible person as Goldstein. 

"But he and she may to a certain extent be excused. Expelled as 
traitors they had nowhere else to turn. But for the Catholic Church, with 
its horrors of 'escaped* nuns and 'reformed' priests, to allow her people 
to use him, is not excusable, she surely has suffered enough from the in- 
former, traitor and spy. Yet the Catholic Workingmen's Welfare associa- 
tion of your vicinity take up and use one who unites in his person and his 
morals everything that is abhorrent, despicable and anti-human in the 
informer.'! 



Political Atheism. 105 

Having a good heart, F. L. excuses "traitors" even, but 
having a bad head he puts socialism and "our church" exactly 
on a par. One needs not to be a revolutionist to know that 
the most conspicuous place in the world to-day to give talent, 
inferior, mediocre or brilliant, its innings is the Socialist Party, 
if that is all that is wanted. While to the Catholic it is assuredly 
known that if one would serve truth — do the bidding of the 
Living God — there is no so potent voice of command as that 
of the militant church. To escape from the socialist movement, 
is to flee from co-operation with the anti-Christ: To "escape" 
from the Church is to fly into the jaws of death. 

We hope the voice of the Good Shepherd will be heard in 
his heart and that our book will show him what — we wish we 
could say nonsense, though we must say wickedness he is har- 
boring. We quote (same issue, S. D. H.) from the priest's 
reply : 

"1. I am heart and soul in sympathy with you in bewailing the 
misfortunes of the working people in this country, and it was to assist 
them and their families that our Guardian Angel work was started. 

"2. I AM as sure as that I am writing this, that socialism is no cure 
for the evils of the working class. It is a dream of the impossible, that can 
never be realized. You write like A SENSIBLE MAN, and yet you say 
'socialists have no leaders.' That is a socialistic absurdity, and the 
entire system is absurd, even if it were not contrary to justice and in 
direct violation of the laws of God. I believe you are honest, but you are 
WOEFULLY DECEIVED. 

"3. I wish you had heard Mr. David Goldstein when he was here in 
the city. His address might have done you some good. We need many 
more such speakers and teachers as he is to enlighten our poor working 
people and to prevent them from being led astray by the fallacies of 
socialism, as you have been led astray. I am sorry for you, and hope your 
eyes may be opened before you go too far.'! 

However excusable are those misguided men who make • 
up the numerical strength of the party, there should be no ; 
easing off of the judgment upon the socialist press. The pace of 
bully-bluffer set by The Worker (Algernon Lee, editor) some 
time since has not been slackened but quickened, if that were 
possible. In its dealings with the church and with trade - 
unions, it gives out base metal as it has none other, though of 
course it flatters itself by using an imitation of righteous in- 



106 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

dignation. It would use the trade-unions to finance its schemes 
and to supply it with votes, and it plays fast and loose with its 
own principles, while its propaganda is taking root. We quote : 

"Shall the church rule the labor movement ? 

"First, he, 'the Bishop of Buffalo,' has declared that the Social 
Democratic Party (or Socialist Party) 'is everywhere characterized by 
unbelief, hostility to religion, and, above all, uncompromising and bitter 
hatred of the Catholic Church,' and that its 'official programs, the plat- 
forms of its party conventions, the public utterances of its advocates, its 
newspaper organs and periodicals breathe hatred and threats against 
revealed religion, its doctrines and institutions.' 

"The Bishop's charge is a sweeping one. We now challenge him, as 
Bishop or as honest man, to prove, not the whole, but one hundredth part 
of what he has alleged. He cannot do it, for it is not true. 

"Bishop Quigley, let us advise you to reconsider your action. Your 
attack is an unprovoked one, for the Socialist Party makes no attack upon 
you or your Church or your beliefs. But if you persist in the attack let 
us tell you that there is no organization on earth that can fight as we can. 
Bismarck has measured strength with us, and failed. Russian czars and 
French dictators have tried to crush our movement, and they have 
failed. You will not succeed.". (The Worker, New York, March 9, 1903O 

Not one word against religion? Indeed, thou art the prince 
of bluffers ! 

From the time of the Communist Manifesto, every socialist 
could have known that it was war to the knife between them and 
Christianity ; while all Catholics were warned by the great 
sociological encyclicals of Leo XIII that socialism is the pest of 
Christian civilization ; and they were encouraged to take up the 
organization of Christian Democracy to save modern society 
from disaster. 

Were it not just a little too late in the day for those of the 
organized revolution to be ignorant of these facts, however 
innocence pretended, may serve the cause of the red flag? 
And were it just to the credit of Catholics not to know or not 
to heed the instructions of the Vicar of Christ? 

The editor of Sempre Avanti, Turin, Italy, (translation, 
The Worker, 3-9-1903) replying to the question: 

'"Can: we keep a picture of Christ in our socialist headquarters?' 
says: It can stay, but the picture should be without a halo, and should 
have the words beneath it: to Christ who was a man and a martyr to the 
principle of brotherhood among men.". 



Political Atheism. 107 

Thus it is that the religious convictions of millions are 
outraged, their belief in the divinity of Christ blasphemed. 

Thus it is that socialist minds are developed, and once evolved 
they breathe hatred, double dyed against religious obligation. 

Some one had written to the socialist press in the silly 
strain of the Sagamore Beach Conferences to the effect that 
Christ was a socialist. This was a cue for the sometime Pro- 
fessor of Applied Christianity to speak, we quote : 

"I have always been thoroughly opposed to the using of the socialist 
platform for the propagation of anything known as 'Social Christianity.' 
I have never, when speaking from a socialist platform, made use of it for 
religious propaganda. I believe every such use of socialism will result in 
confusion, disaster and betrayal. Every appeal to men to become social- 
ists in the name of Christianity will result in the corruption and betrayal 
of socialism in the end, and in the use of the movement for private ends. 
People cannot separate Christ from Christianity. And Christianity to-day 
stands for what is lowest and basest in life. The church of to-day sounds 
the lowest note in human life. It is the most degrading of all our institu- 
tions, and the most brutalizing in its effects on the common life. The 
church is simply organzied Christianity. For socialism to use it, to make 
terms with it, or to let it make approaches to the socialist movement is 
for socialism to take Judas to its bosom. There is not an instance, in 
sixteen centuries, in which the church has not betrayed every movement 
for human emancipation it has touched. Official religion and militarism 
are the two guardians of capitalism, and the subtle methods of the church, 
in destroying the manhood of the soul and keeping it servile, are infinitely 
more to be dreaded by the socialist movement than the world's standing 
armies. 

"Let us keep clean from confusion and self-deceit in this critical hour, 
and not use the socialist movement for special propagandas of our own. 
If we belong to socialism, if our lives are dedicated to the revolution — 
and its emancipation of mind and body, then let us give ourselves to it 
without trying to use it, or without putting conditions in our service." 
(The Worker, March 30, 1902, republished from The Advance, also re- 
published in The Wc ge Slave, Hancock, Mich., July 3, 1908.) 

It is quite true that since George D. Herron became 
"race-conscious" (it is only the rich who may become so) he 
has not contributed to the confusion on this point. Dr. Herron 
has not attempted to saddle a Christ upon the movement. 
No, he has rather helped to tighten the girth of the socialist 
saddle, for Political Atheism was going "some" ere he joined 
the movement to speed the pace of the devil. 



to8 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

It is a rara avis to find in a socialist publication a state- 
ment favorable to religious institutions; but in opposition to 
the Professor's statement that we have had 16 centuries of 
church betrayal of every movement for human emancipation, 
we are happy to present the view of an acknowledged leader of 
the Social Democratic Federation of Great Britain. 

Henry Mayers Hyndman has some little historical reputation 
at stake, but better than that, he has an English frankness which 
is refreshing in the discussion of whatsoever topic. "We quote: 

"The relations of the church, the monasteries and the clergy to the 
people were also most important from every point of view. There is 
nothing more noteworthy in the history of the human mind than the 
manner in which the essential portion of English society in the middle- 
ages has been handled by our ordinary economists, chroniclers, and 
religionists. Even sober, and in the main tolerably conscientious writers, 
seem to lose their heads or become afraid to tell the truth on this matter. 
Just as the modern capitalist can see nothing but anarchy and oppression 
in the connection between the people and the feudal noble, so the authors 
who represent the middle-class economy of our time, the Protestant divines 
whose creed is, the devil take the hindmost here and hereafter, fail to 
discover anything but luxury, debauchery and hypocrisy in the Catholic 
church of the fifteenth century. 

" It is high time that, without any prejudice in favour of that church, 
the nonsense which has been foisted onto the public by men interested in 
suppressing the facts should be exposed. It is not true that the church of 
our ancestors was the organized fraud which it suits fanatics to represent 
it; it is not true that the monasteries, priories, and nunneries were mere 
receptacles for all uncleanness and lewdness ; it is not true that the great 
revenues of the celibate clergy and the celibate recluses were squandered, 
as a rule, in riotous living. As a mere question of religion, Catholicism 
was as good as any creed which has ever found acceptance amongst men. 
Abuses doubtless there were, and most of them were bitterly attacked by 
members of the Church themselves; tyranny and persecution there were, 
too, in many forms ; but the church, as all know, was the one body in which 
equality of conditions was the rule from the start. There, at least, the 
man of ability, who outside her pale was forced to bow down before some 
Norman baron, whose ruffianly ancestor has formed part of William's 
gang of marauders, could rise to a position in which this rough, unlettered 
swashbuckler grovelled before him. Sixtus V was picked out of the 
gutter; our Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, Adrian IV, was a poor 
labourer's son; and these are but two instances, out of thousands, of 
distinguished ecclesiastics of humble birth. 

"However dangerous, also, the spiritual authority of the churdh may 
appear to us, it was used for the most part, notwithstanding all the hideous 
corruptions of the papa] court the days of the Borgias and others, for tfte 



Political Atheism. 109 

people and against the dominant class ; and its influence, as history shows, 
was almost unbounded. Kings and barons alike bowed and trembled be- 
fore it. The great art of the time, too, was, like all other great art, for 
public uses, and devoted to religion. But all this was trifling compared 
with the work done in the way of general education. The conventual 
establishments and the parish priests did far more than is commonly 
supposed in the direction of elementary teaching. But the higher educa- 
tion, — the universities? Where would Oxford be to-day but for the 
splendid munificence of bishops, monks and nuns? Fourteen of her 
finest colleges were founded by the celibate ecclesiastics and recluses for 
the benefit, above all, of the children of the people. 

"Our noble Church of England has turned these magnificent establish- 
ments into mere preserves for the upper and middle classes. So I might 
go on in refutation of the foolish idea that the greatest institution of the 
middle ages, the most complete and widespread religious organization ever 
known on the planet, was a mere collection of idol- worshippers and in- 
cense-burners, and its ecclesiastical establishments nothing but dens of 
iniquity. My purpose, however, is not to champion the Catholic Church 
against the attacks of ignorant historians, but to show briefly the useful 
functions it fulfilled in the social economy of the time.'' ("The Historical 
Basis of Socialism," pages 14, 15, 16, 17.) 

Mr. Hyndman then proceeds to show that church prop- 
erty was held in the interest of the people ; that the parish 
priest was permitted to spend but the smaller part of his income 
upon himself, two-thirds of it going to the poor and to the ser- 
vice of the church; that existing account -books of the mon- 
asteries show that a large part of the revenues was spent on 
travelers, the poor, the sick and in other good works. In fact, 
the data brought out by Mr. Hyndman's historical research 
on this ground is in complete harmony with that of Dr. James 
J. Walsh in "The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries," although 
their interpretation is quite in opposition. 

Following the monistic school of thought, Mr. Hyndman 
discards the basis of reason. Hence nothing can be seen by 
the human mind, neither the object to which he pays atten- 
tion, nor that object which stands as its contrasting object, 
for just as a hat is known from a coat amongst things relative, 
just so all relative things are known by their contrast to things 
absolute. So it is that Mr. Hyndman is true to historical 
facts and yet false to the philosophical meaning of those facts. 

We are told that Mr. Hyndman disclaims being a philoso- 
pher. Perhaps that is the reason that his common sense keeps 



no Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

its seat when dealing with data relative to Christian history. 
At all events, with the materialist conception of history as foun- 
dation, political atheism as the means and socialism as the aim, 
very unscholarly tricks are the commonplace of socialist classics. 

Having discarded God, the foremost socialist leaders and 
thinkers of this generation, like Paul Laf argue, whose "scholar- 
ship is simply stupendous" in the opinion of TheCall (8-14-1910) , 
must bully common folk into the notion that if one believe in 
God, he must believe in two gods, one good and one bad. If 
they argue monism is not the correct philosophy, then dual- 
ism is the necessary choice, so God and the devil share the honors 
of creating mankind. This flippant conclusion passes for the 
acme of astuteness in thought. 

Contrary to the socialist view of Christian thought the 
basis of reason is not good and evil, not God and the devil. 
The basis of right-reason must be sought in the ultimate origin 
of things. The order of right-reason being God, my immortal 
soul and all things else — the Changeless and the changeable. 
Hence historical phenomena, which are constantly evolving, 
are never correctly read, save in the light of basic principles, 
which are eternally the same. Entering the world which man 
has builded, we come upon the moral domain, where to the 
merely natural phenomena man has super-added the economic 
world. Hence whenever and wherever within the civilized 
world men are sufficiently obedient to God's commandments, 
which never change, then and there the material comforts of 
the hewers of wood and the drawers of water are justly and 
kindly looked after, and the sick and the wicked are cared for 
in the love of God. But with a materialist philosophy, usurp- 
ing the throne of understanding reason and morals are topsy- 
turvy, and in such a melee the devil catches more than the 
hindermost. 

As all socialists, Mr. Hyndman advocates obedience, not 
to the Vicar of Christ, but to the dictates of the Revolution. 
And the personnel of the Revolution translates Mr. Hyndman's 
forceful and graceful English first into the vandalism of anti- 
religious thought and then into anti-religious acts as recently 
in Barcelona. Thus the god of the Revolution speculates 
upon what he shall do when he is voted into power : 



Political Atheism. hi 

"This brings me to the churches, the spires, if any, will be used as 
stations for wireless telegraphy. In these halls the people will assemble 
for lectures, concerts, theatrical performances. . . . After the lecture 
or concert the people will have a dance, the old gentlemen play skat, 
and the old ladies hold b, Kaffe Klatch . . M (Social Democratic 
Herald, March 2, 1907.) 

Of course materialist monists should not be expected 
to see Divine Providence ruling throughout all the ages of 
time; nor that political atheism triumphant should use God's 
temples as houses of praise and prayer. But we are indeed 
glad that even the enemy testifies as to the Church's good care 
of the poor. Mr. Hyndman goes on to say: 

"Granting that large sums were wasted on the useless ceremonies of 
Masses and candles, that some of the monasteries had a well-managed 
refectory and an admirable cellar of wine and beer, it is certain, neverthe- 
less, that the abbots and priors were the best landlords in England, and 
that, so long as the church held its lands and its power, permanent pauper- 
ism was unknown." 

Now that rebellion against the authority of religion has 
deprived artizans of the "best landlords," and taken from the 
Church the economic power to prevent pauperism, the Revo- 
lution would go farther on the road to social disruption by 
taking away from the state the security of the home and from 
women the protection of marriage : 

"Religion has all through the ages been a disruptive force. 
The Socialist Party, . . . has no more right to condemn those 
who believe that men and women can be clean and true husbands and 
wives without a clergyman's benediction than it has to impose upon its 
members any one of the many forms of marriage ceremony, each of which 
has been declared to be the only holy or legitimate one. 

"The Socialist Party has no more right to condemn the atheists, be 
there few or many in its ranks, than it has to condemn the Presbyterians 
or the Quakers or the Jews or the Catholics. It has no more right to 
endorse the belief in God than to denounce such a belief." (The Worker, 
4-26-1903.) 

No! certainly not, the Socialist Party has no "right to 
condemn" its own teaching. It openly declares its adher- 
ence to the principles of free love, which our next chapter 
will prove. But a self-respecting, law-abiding, God-fearing 



ii2 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

body of men organized into a political party have the right 
and would exercise the right of protecting the integrity of the 
family by upholding civil and ecclesiastical marriage. 

However, it should be added that the word right in the 
mouth of the class-conscious cannot have a moral significance; 
it merely means superior mechanical force. Again, the So- 
cialist Party has "no right to condemn the atheists" within 
its ranks, for atheism lies at the base of its propaganda. To 
condemn atheists, it would be necessary to overthrow its "eco- 
nomic determinism," its "materialist conception of history," 
along with the rest of its "class-conscious" jargon. If it were 
to condemn atheists, the major portion of its membership 
would be "disciplined" out of the party. If it were to con- 
demn atheists every party paper would be searching for a 
new editor. No indeed ! It would not do to condemn atheists, 
for there would not be a grease spot of the Socialist Party left 
to tell the tale of its dissolution. But this is after all only a 
little pleasantry on editor Lee's part. Just a little sophistry, 
a little Punch and Judy justice — just a little touch of social- 
istic tactics. 

With no marriage ceremony required and no declaration 
in the belief of God, the "greatest freedom" which is to be 
given mankind under the socialist regime, will be amidst the 
ruins of the church, the state and the family. It will be the 
"freedom and harmony" of no restraint, of no condemnation 
of sex relations outside the marriage bond, dilated upon. Wild 
liberty, this! — Freedom and harmony gone mad. One may 
as well picture an ideal freedom with ferocious beasts roam- 
ing the city streets as to picture ideal human freedom with 
religious faith and moral standards broken. But to this end, 
affirms this editorial, is political power sought by the Socialist 
Party. We quote : 

"Under the conditions now existing in this country, political action 
presents itself as the method by which this change should be affected." 

Is not this a gingerly fashion of announcing that political 
atheism is the means of overcoming religion, which "has all 
through the ages been a disruptive force?" Surely it were 
great praise to the fine feelings of the proletariat that modern 



Political Atheism. 113 

blasphemy should take on so mincing a gait. Truly it were 
hard work for these "heretics," as John Mitchell styled them, 
these defamers of civic virtue to be and not to be thoroughly 
at war with Christianity and merely for an economic program. 
But having recourse to a well-groomed duplicity, editor Lee 
continues : 

"Whoever seeks to commit the organized socialist movement to any 
declaration upon other than economic and political principles seeks, 
wilfully or not, but none the less injuriously if without evil intent, to 
divide and to weaken the movement.' ' 

If only socialists dared to be in the open what they are 
in thought, it were a simple matter to rid our country of the 
pest. It was their master politician, Hillquit, who counseled 
double dealing with regard to the religious planks at the last 
national platform on the plea that under the fire of public 
questioning socialists have frequently not the courage of their 
convictions (Proceedings, Socialist Party Convention, Chicago, 
1908). 

We repeat, political action on the part of socialists is 
merely the means of changing the whole fabric of society — 
economic, political, judicial, moral and religious. In other 
words, socialism is the foe, not of the vices which afflict Christian 
civilization, but of organized society itself. We dare its pro- 
moters to stand out in the light — to be in the open what they 
are in the dark — to stand by the words of their masters, Marx 
and Engels, in "the most international production of all so- 
cialist literature," the "Communist Manifesto," — to stand with- 
out finesse before the American people as the advocates of a 
Godless society. To be as : 

"The Communists disdaining to conceal their views and aims, they 
openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible over- 
throw of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble 
at a Communistic revolution.' ' 

We dare socialists to state plainly, in words which the 
man in the street understands the meaning of, their political 
program. To state explicitly, that atheism lies at the foun- 
dation of its economic demands; and that no faith in God is 
the root of the system, if system it may be called, which gain- 



ii4 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

ing the political power, shall be introduced. In one word, 
we dare socialists to pick up the gage of battle on the plain 
issue, namely, atheism as the proposed foundation of socialist 
society versus God as the Author of nations. But as we are 
sure i:hat the socialist platform makers dare not be so bold as 
to tell the American voters just what they really mean we shall 
set down what it were fatal to their party progress not to con- 
ceal — the fact that "economic determinism" is in reality the 
socialist substitute for God. We quote at some length from 
"The Economic Foundations of Society," by Achille Loria, the 
Italian socialist, who is recognized as the "greatest living ex- 
ponent of economic determinism." This book is especially 
recommended by the National Ex. Com. of the Socialist Party. 

"If we examine the psychological influences surrounding isolated or 
co-actively associated labor, we find they reduce themselves to the 
following: First, labor, whose productivity is limited, either on account 
of its lack of association, or by reason of the checks imposed by compulsory 
association, is unable to dominate matter completely, and finds itself 
accordingly unable to effectually control the forces of nature. Second, 
this fact, taken together with the unconscious character of the social 
relations surrounding the individual, determines a sort of obsession of the 
mental faculties, and engenders a feeling of degradation and impotence, 
because he, as an individual, feels himself the victim of social forces, of 
whose ulterior tendencies he is ignorant, and whose processes he is unable 
to control. Third, the necessity of reconciling the social conscience to the 
existence of economic forms which are essentially corrupt, leads, by a 
systematic falsification of logic, to the institution of a settled sophism. 

"These three influences combined — and more particularly the first — 
result in a psychological phenomenon of extraordinary compass, namely 
the idea of the supernatural. 

It is, therefore, in no wise strange that the religious sentiment is thus 
developed as the psychological product of isolated or co-actively associated 
labour. 

"Religious ideas, however elaborate and complex, are all derived from 
the original feeling of impotence that the human being experiences before 
the forces of nature ; and this sentiment, in turn, is the historical product 
of either the non-association or the compulsory association of labour. 
Such is the psychological basis upon which capitalistic society has been 
able to elaborate its methods of coercive morality. Now, given such 
psychological conditions, with their resulting mental phenomena, the 
means of moral suasion which society has at its disposal, evidently reduce 
themselves to the following : fear, religion and public opinion. 



Political Atheism. 115 

"Religion in the sense of an invocation of Divine aid through prayers 
and offerings, does not of itself imply morality. Morality is a relation 
between man and man; religion is a relation between man and God; and 
these two relations may very well be disconnected and exist independently 
of each other. This is so true that in many religions the moral element 
is absolutely lacking. . . . Though religion is thus not necessar- 
ily accompanied with moral sanctions, it may, nevertheless, be made to 
serve as an excellent instrument of moral coercion. ... In this 
way God becomes, as it were, the capitalist of heaven, crediting men with 
the good actions performed during their lifetime, and paying them a 
proportional salary either in this life or in the life to come. Thus the fear 
of Divine punishment succeeds in doing violence to the egoism of the 
individual, deterring him from acting in conformity with his own interests, 
and impelling him to acts which are opposed to his own, but in conformity 
with the real egoism of his oppressors. 

"After we have once thoroughly grasped the truth that capitalistic 
property is not a natural phenomenon but a violation of law, both human 
and divine— the impossible erected into a system- — we shall be able to 
understand how in order to guarantee the persistence of so absurd and 
contradictory a system it is necessary to draw upon all the passions and 
sentiments of human nature, corrupt them at their purest sources and 
divert them into the service of this monstrous engine of iniquity." 

Here are the principles upon which the political party is 
builded, and socialists are in honor bound, or would be if honor 
could be educed from atheism, to set down in terms that he 
who runs may read the pith of these assumptions. 

If it be true, as Loria affirms, that " The religious senti- 
ment is developed as the psychological product of co-actively 
associated labor," then is revealed religion a "monstrous en- 
gine of iniquity!" 

Then are religious precepts and religious teaching — a 
vain delusion and a snare, for "Religious ideas are derived 
from the feeling of impotence." "God is the capitalist of 
heaven," leading men "by a systematic falsification of logic" 
and with "fear of Divine punishment," to perform acts "in 
conformity with the interest of their oppressors." If this be 
true, then is the world's history false. The path cut through 
the- -wilderness of the ages by the vanguard of the religious 
is a curse, not a blessing — the democracy of religion which 
teaches that God is no respecter of persons — that all men 
are equal before Him is said to corrupt men "at their 
purest source." 



n6 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 



But as even the devil commits himself by giving his lie 
away, so does this great Italian," the greatest living exponent" 
of the basic principles of the Socialist Party platform give 
away the impotence of his reasoning. For how can a thing be 
pure or impure with mere mechanical motion — with a mere 
mode of production — as its original progenitor? 

What we challenge socialists to do is simply this, to open 
to public view the vital .difference between the socialist con- 
ception of the origin of religious faith and the teachings of 
the Mosaic and Christian law? 

Religions are built upon the authority of Almighty God. 
Whether such authority is recognized as coming to the He- 
brew nation, whether the authority is recognized in the apos- 
tolic successors of Jesus Christ, or whether the Bible is ac- 
cepted as the authority, all are agreed that Divine Revelation 
is the source, the one only source, of religious faith and in- 
stitutions. Socialists affirm that religious, philosophical, ar- 
tistic, literary and other institutions are the result of economic 
environment, and change with the changing economic order. 

"In the third month of the departure of Israel out of the land of Egypt, 
on this day they came into the wilderness of Sinai : 

"And Moses went up to God : and the Lord called unto him from the 
mountain, and said: Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell 
the children of Israel : 

"You have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, how I have 
carried you upon the wings of eagles, and have taken you to myself. 

"If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall 
be my peculiar possession above all people: for all the earth is mine. 

"And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. 
These are the words thou shalt speak to the children of Israel. 

"And Moses came down from the mount to the people, and sanctified 
them. 

"And the Lord spoke the words of the Commandments to Moses. 

"And all the people saw the voices and the flames, and the sound of the 
trumpet, and the mount smoking: and being terrified and struck with 
fear, they stood afar off. 

"And Moses said to the people: Fear not: for God is come to prove 
you, and that the dread of him might be in you, and you should not sin. 

"And the Lord said to Moses : Thus shalt thou say to the children of 
Israel : You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. 

"Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. 
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 



Political Atheism. 117 

"For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ. 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son 
of man be lifted up : 

"For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that 
whosoever belie veth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. 

"For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that 
the world may be saved by him. 

"He that belie veth in him is not judged. But he that doth not 
believe, is already judged: because he belie veth not in the name of the 
only begotten Son of God. 

"Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? 

"Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the 
living God. 

"And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my father, 
who is in heaven. 

"And I say to thee: that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will 
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 

So it is that the Ten Commandments stand eternally as 
the moral law, while the Beatitudes make up the counsels 
to human perfection given by our Lord Jesus Christ for all 
time, to all persons. So it is that revelation forms the basis 
of religious faith and institutions. Socialism makes a mock 
at revelation and faith; hence the very nature of the beast 
compels socialists to stand, having the courage of their con- 
victions, diametrically opposed to existing religious institu- 
tions. 

So it is that the vital issue between citizen and citizen 
at the polls is after all not a matter of politics proper, but this : 
shall the public powers be used in the interest of egotism or 
in the interest of the spirit of sacrifice, which is at its base the 
force that builds and sustains the nation? 

How absurd is socialism's accounting of itself. It has 
but matter and force to start with as the foundation of all 
things, yet when it waxes wroth it forgets its "science" and 
takes to common sense. It protests that capitalist property 
is not a "natural phenomena" but a violation of both human 
and Divine law. How may one who denies the existence of 
God talk of Divine law? Without God, how even may one 
talk of "human law?" Without God the rational principle 



n8 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

has no origin and so no existence, neither in reason nor in fact. 
Statute law rests on human law, not on mechanical law, and 
human law in its turn is based upon natural rights, and natural 
law springs from the rational nature, which is the direct gift of 
God to man. Having denied the existence of God, very consist- 
ently socialism denies the existence of natural rights, for if " the 
religious sentiment is developed as the psychological product 
of co-actively associated labor," the belief in God falls! Di- 
vine law falls, and all laws fall. So traveling along its path 
of folly egotism finds its proper estate, as without law chaos 
instead of order reigns. 

With atheism as the cause of the socialist movement, it 
surely were becoming that chaos should be found as the logi- 
cal end of its contentions. Indeed the Socialist Party would 
thus erect "the impossible" into a system. 

Socialist economics is equally as erratic as its philosophical 
sire is without rational foundation. This ' 'science" has also 
erected the impossible into a system. Beginning with a chain 
of "mutual dependencies" an organic whole is erected with- 
out an efficient cause. Not even the stuff of which dreams are 
made is laid down as the foundation of this too solid prop- 
erty of the "capitalist" regime. And yet though God Him- 
self is alleged to be a pyschological product natural to property 
relations, it is asserted that " capitalist property is not a natural 
phenomena." All this worse than nonsense is proposed for 
the deepest of human wisdom in order to make out that re- 
ligion evolves with the evolving economic system. That the 
evolving economic system is perforce coming up to the socialist 
regime as the next step in human affairs is their dogma. Thus 
at once doing away with the ages' long class-struggles, while cre- 
ating a " classless " society; also doing away with God altogether 
and at once creating a " race-conscious " society. With this con- 
sequence that the "social organism" having attained free will, 
shall, at last, realize the ''Supreme Being" in itself — in the 
mass-man. 

Surely an organized body, of four thousand locals within 
the United States, supporting a political party founded upon 
these principles and controlled by men holding these views 
should be known as political atheism. 



Political Atheism. 119 

But as this is not well understood, and as many a well- 
intentioned man thinks the movement must be in the right 
direction, for one reason that "so many cultivated persons 
are joining it," we shall enforce our conclusion by additional 
testimony, on this ground, namely, that as religion in its basic 
sense is natural to mankind because God is the Creator of the 
race; so also that private property is natural to the use of 
the economic talents bestowed upon mankind. Hence, po- 
litical atheism as an integral part of our natural activity should 
not be permitted to expand its deadly influence within our 
borders, by patriotic citizens of whatsoever faith. 

We present here as the natural defense of religion a state- 
ment from the late Rev. Fr. L. A. Lambert, the author of 
the two books ("Notes on Ingersoll," and "The Tactics of 
Infidels"), the earnest perusal of which would arrest the 
development of "socialist minds," who defines religion as 
follows: 

"By the word religion, when used without adjective or qualification, 
is meant that primitive and universal intuition or idea which is common 
to all men, and is one and the same in all, however various their forms or 
systems of religion may be. This primitive idea is that of a power superior 
to that of man; of a Supreme Being who governs all things. From this 
primitive idea springs the idea of relations between this Supreme Being and 
man, and from these are derived obligations, duties and the impulse to 
worship and to manifest that worship by external acts. All the various 
forms or systems of religion, true or false, that are known to the world have 
their origin in this primitive intuition or idea called religion; without it 
they would be alike impossible. This primitive idea is a fundamental 
fact of our nature, it is the common property of all men, Christian, Jew 
or Gentile. The errors of false systems of religion are not in the primitive 
idea but in the false development of it.'! 

Now that we have shown revelation to be the basis of 
religious beliefs and institutions: now that we have an un- 
derstanding of what is meant by religion as an unqualified 
term, this question is pertinent. Is the socialist doctrine com- 
patible with religion ? 

Suppose we invite Loria first to answer. 

"Religious ideas, however elaborate and complex,*' are 
the "historical product of either the non-association or com- 
pulsory association of labor." 



\2o Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

The organizer of the modern socialist movement of France, 
Paul Lafargue (a son in-law of Karl Marx) , shall next set forth 
his views; taken from "The Evolution of Property" (p. 58). 

"Religious rites and ceremonies were instituted to impress upon 
the superstitious minds of primitive people the respect due to private 
property of the family collectively," 

Curiously enough Lafargue's intellectual vandalism finds 
it necessary to pay tribute to the humanity of Mother Church, 
even as he tells the imaginary history of the development of 
Christianity, which development is assumed to consist in the 
progressive lessening of Christian charity. We quote from 
Bourgeois 1 Charity (translation, The Call, 8-1 2-1 9 10): 

"The holidays of the Catholic Church, which numbered ninety fete 
days, besides the fifty-two Sundays, and which made an average of three 
holidays a week, on which days under the ancient regime they were for- 
bidden to work, placed an obstacle to the exploitation of labor. Likewise 
the distribution of soup and rations, which many monasteries kept up, 
complemented to some degree the wages of the needy workmen which they 
received for the four days of the week on which it was permissible to 
exploit them. Protestantism, in order to satisfy the industrial bourgeois 
who were very numerous in its ranks, condemned alms-giving in the name 
of religion and abolished the saints from heaven in order to suppress the 
fete days on earth. The revolution of 1789 did still more. The reformed 
religion preserved the Sundays, but the bourgeois revolutionaries, finding 
that one day of rest in every seven was too much, substituted for the week 
the decade, so that the day of rest fell only on every tenth day, and in 
order to obliterate completely the memory of the fete days they replaced 
the saints in the republican calendar with the names of metals, plants and 
animals. The law of the twenty-fourth vendemiaire of the year II made 
alms-giving a misdemeanor.". 

Of course, it is clear enough to those who are able to dis- 
criminate between the history that is genuine and the " history" 
that is made to justify the lust of Henry the 8th or to prove 
the socialist creed, that the Catholic Church having been de- 
spoiled of her economic possessions and her guild organizations 
has for some four hundred years been unable to protect the 
masses from the wilful despoilation consequent upon the greed 
of the masters who inherited the code of disobedience to the 
Vicar of Christ. As socialism is in direct line of descent from 



Political Atheism. 121 

the so-called Reformation, it should be historically clear that 
not more of anti-Christianity but none at all were the cure 
for the several ills that afflict the body politic. 

It were curious, too, that Engels, in "The Roots of Socialist 
Philosophy," must perforce pay homage to Christianity — to 
the moral standards it has inculcated. This is done in obscure 
language, evidently it is intended to warn off any scrupulous 
suggestions which might enter his own or the reader's mind as to 
the truth, after all, that religion is a vital force — the most 
vital in the case of each one of the countless millions who come 
from and go to God. Even this mental darkness is made 
darker by an added sentence to fix firm that uneasy science 
which reports that "the material" of which ideology is made 
springs from the relationships of employer and employee. 
We quote : 

"Religion once arisen contains material of tradition, hence in all 
ideological matters, religion is a great conservative force. But the 
changes which take place in this material spring from class conditions, 
that is from the economic circumstances of the men who take these changes 
in hand." 

Certainly, "religion is a great conservative force." Re- 
ligious influences have promoted and sustained the progress 
of civilization, as against the lewdness of the influence of ma- 
terialism. For the simple reason that God set up the stand- 
ards of morality and commands obedience thereto, which con- 
serves the life of man. 

August Bebel says the same thing, and he also is the best 
of socialist authority : 

"Ethics and morality exist even without religion. Only fools and 
hypocrites would assert the contrary. Ethics and morality are the 
expression of conceptions that regulate the actions and mutual relations of 
men, while religion comprises the relations of men to supernatural beings. 
But, like religion, our moral conceptions, too, arise from prevailing social 
conditions.". ("Woman," page 439.) 

Atheism is not alone the "science," it is also the art of the 
international movement. 

It is certain that the animus of the Austrian socialists is 
directed against religion, for this phrase is to be found in their 
platform. "No religious bodies to have privileges," 



122 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Karl Kautsky, than whom no man stands higher in the 
international socialist movement, has this to say: 

"In France, where the traditions of the French Revolution continue 
to exercise so powerful an action, where the religious orders have become 
fighting organizations on the side of reaction . . . we must 
demand the dissolution of the orders, and the confiscation of their 
property/' (Social Democrat, London, England, May 15, 1903.) 

In commenting upon the booklet, "Morals and Socialism," 
The People (N. Y., 2-1 8-1 900), has no good word at all for 
Christianity. We quote: 

"How has the ruling class established this control over its members 
and its slaves? In three ways — through religion ; through public opinion ; 
and through the law, with its judges and soldiers. 

"Religion is perhaps the most powerful of these means of maintaining 
class society by inducing the members of the subject class to act contrary 
to their own interests and in accordance with that of their masters. And 
Christianity, the religion of the most progressive part of the human family, 
is the most effective of all. It has operated primarily by the offer of re- 
wards in heaven and the threat of punishment in hell = The lesson has 
been so well taught that, even where the belief in heaven and hell is gone, 
the old moral feelings connected with it survive for a long-time.". 

In his Religion of Socialism, Ernest Belfort Bax has 
evolved so far into the vacuum of socialist negation as to blas- 
pheme without emotion. Being conscious neither of the ne- 
cessity for a First Cause, nor a Final Destiny, Bax has in- 
herited the mantle of "our philosopher," so to his comrades in 
intellectual folly his voluminous words make wisdom herself. 

"It is sometimes said that socialism is neither religious nor irreligious. 
This does not or should not mean that socialism fails to come into contact 
with the views of the world and of life which the current religions furnish, 
or that at a particular stage in its progress it may not take up a position 
even of active hostility to those religions. What it means is that socialism 
implies a state of society out and away beyond the barren speculative 
polemics of the hour. 

"In what sense socialism is not religious will be now clear. It utterly 
despises the 'other world' with all its stage properties — that is, the 
present objects of religion. . . . The socialist whose social creed is 
his only religion requires no travesty of Christian rites to aid him in 
keeping his ideal before him.'l 

All this should be enough, but yet we give more that so- 
cialists themselves may prove that their "social creed" dis- 



Political Atheism. 123 

misses moral responsibility, the tie which harmoniously unites 
man to man, for the simple reason that it denies individual 
responsibility to Almighty God, 

"All religions the world has ever seen have been imposed for the 
purpose of preventing the operation of the collective will. They have been 
mere philosophies of submission, aiming at the subjection of the people. 
The world has therefore only advanced as the collective will has found 
halting expression in successive revolutions made against these imposed 
dogmas, both the church and the state. Thus humanity can hope to 
advance only as it forsakes all reliance upon any resources outside of the 
common life, The common life and its common aims, aspirations and 
efforts must be its own saviour. It makes even now its own heaven and its 
own hell." — G. D. Herron. (The Socialist Spirit, January, 1903.) 

The substitution of the "collective will" for the moral lav/ 
and the "common life" for one's personal obedience to God's 
will is indeed a very practical effort to shut off the thought of 
the day that shall come with its final "well done" or "depart 
ye." No doubt, an intellectual "boose" is the nearest state to 
oblivion which a cultivated man may commonly employ to ease 
off a gnawing remorse. Yet, even so, there shall be sober 
moments. 

The Hon. James F. Carey of Haverhill, in a speech before 
the Channing Club of Boston, said : 

"Not all the hypocrisy of the pulpit . . . can possibly destroy 
the rock upon which we of the despised working class build up our phil- 
osophy. It (socialism) is our only hope, and without that hope no promise 
of heaven, no fear of hell, can cause us to have any interest in life.'' 

And what is that rock? "Economic determinism" — that 
force called progress, which begins with the troglodyte, and 
ends — with the devil. 

Mr. Carey is a man who finds it quite compatable, with 
his socialist mind, at once, to endorse in his official capacity 
and to deny in his individual utterances BebeVs Woman, this 
course makes for progress in Massachusetts. 

Yet greater men, by example, teach a vicious standard of 
morality. Liebknecht can take an oath before God to serve 
the Fatherland and give his pledge that : 

"Socialism must conquer the stupidity of the masses in so far as this 
stupidity reveals itself in religious forms and dogmas.' ! 



124 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

Kindly keep in mind that it is Liebknecht who speaks as 
reported by The People (Jan. 19, 1901) : 

" 'I swear before God, of being unfalteringly loyal to the constitution ; 
to serve, according to my conscience, by my propositions and my votes, 
the inseparable interests of the King and the Fatherland. So help me God.' 

"There were, comrades, at that time, 'purists.' 'uncompromising' 
men, who accused Liebknechtof having failed towards the social democracy 
by taking an oath for the purpose of filling a seat in the landtag. Where- 
upon Liebknecht, the admirable revolutionist, answered well: 'What of 
it ? We would be eternally the dupes of the ruling class, if all they had to 
do was to throw across our path the paper obstacle of the formula of an 
oath.' " 

In France political atheism advances by the same false 
methods. Jean Jaures, defending Liebknecht, pleads his own 
case: 

"And I, in turn, ask : When a crime is made out of a socialist cabinet 
minister's having accepted what I shall call the ministerial formality of 
seeming solidarity with his colleagues in the cabinet, is that formality more 
humiliating than was, for the revolutionary socialists of Germany, the 
oath taken 'before God' to remain loyal to the king? 

"I ask you whether we also should allow ourselves to be arrested in 
our course by those obstacles of paper, before those bureau formalities, 
and whether we shall hesitate, when our Cause needs it, to throw one of 
our own into the fortress of a hostile Government? ('No! No! ' ) '' {The 
People, Jan. 12, 1901.) 

Since this time as everybody knows socialism in France 
has made great strides in its "Cause" by robbing the Catholic 
Church of all her property. While from the statistics pub- 
lished annually, those of 1909 announce that crime is rapidly 
on the increase among youths between the ages of seven and 
twenty years. Yet, the report gives surer proof that the 
"Cause" is progressing in France. We quote from America 
(Dec. 3-1910) : 

"As regards children under seven years the figures given do not 
furnish a complete idea of the prevalence of evildoings.'* 

If it were not that socialism is the cause, hissing the name 
of God a means, and baby criminals an effect, we shall gladly 
rest this division here, but yet cumulative testimony shall 
be given from England, by Frederick Engels: 



Political Atheism. 125 

"English socialism affords the most pronounced expression of the 
prevailing absence of religion among the working-men, an expression so 
pronounced indeed that the mass of working-men, being unconsciously 
and merely practically irreligious, often draw back before it ; but here, too, 
necessity will force the working-men to abandon the remnants of a belief 
which, as they will more and more clearly perceive — serves only to make 
them weak and resigned to their fate." ("Condition of the Working Class 
in England in 1844," page 237.) 

Possibly this from James Leatham will convince some one 
of the fact that there is no room for God in the socialist move- 
ment : 

"No exercise of faith is required for belief in the event of socialism; 
for socialism is admitted to be inevitable, even by those who abhor it and 
dread its coming. 

"But faith, properly so called, is dead. The belief in God, with all 
it implies, is now without a raison d'etre. The original conception of God 
has everywhere been that of a Creator, a great Master Workman, of the 
Universe, who made it and who sustains it. But the idea of creation is 
now given up. The conception of a universe beginning to be out of noth- 
ing is found, even by Roman Catholic theologians, to be unthinkable, and 
they now speak of God and the Universe as 'co-existent eternities.' This 
is certainly giving away the idea of God as the Creator. 

"Nor is the conception of God the Sustainer any longer an intellectual 
necessity, as it was when men could not account for the phenomena of 
Nature in terms of the Natural. . . . There is nothing left for 
Deity to do.'' ("Socialism and Character," "A contribution towards a 
system of applied ethics." 1899. Preface.) 

Of course this is sheer impudence, for every man who reads 
may know that the Catholic Church has not changed Her doc- 
trine one jot or one tittle during all the centuries of her life. 
And, too, it were sheer ignorance not to discriminate between 
truths which change not and the discipline of the Church which 
has changed and may be changed. Not to recognize that the 
incidental phenomena is one thing and that the active principle 
which runs through that phenomena is quite distinct from 
it, were as lacking in right cognition as not to recognize one's 
own self from the changing phenomena of e very-day existence. 

Moreover to set up fatalistic belief, as a matter of scien- 
tific fore-sight, in opposition to Christian faith were to fly in 
the face of reason and of experience. First because all what- 
soever of genuine science thus far discovered is heartily accept* 



126 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

able to Christian dogma and to Christian civilization. Second- 
arily because all the heresies thus far hatched have beaten their 
wings in vain against the Vatican walls. One by one and 
dozens all together they shall vex themselves to death for want 
of coherence with Truth, while Deity will do what God has 
ever done — go a long way out to meet the repentant sinner. We 
would that this book shall aid in turning many back again to 
be guided along right paths, for " His own name's sake." 

Truly, nothing much is left for Deity to do with men of 
perverse will, save He give them miraculous help; but there 
is much to be done in order to show misled men that nothing 
but ignorance and ill-will lies behind the stupendous assump- 
tion that there is no rasion d'etre for faith in God's love for 
and His goodness to us. Much to be done to prove to the masses 
who are unjustly and unmercifully dealt with that not even 
"heaven below" shall come by the power of political atheism. 

"Religion is a fantastic degradation of human nature."- (Karl 
Marx.) 

"We wish in politics the republic, in economy socialism, and in religion 
athesim.". (August Bebel.) 

The following from the organ of the German socialists, is 
brutally frank enough to show what the socialist intent is: 

"The socialistic state will never be realized except by a violent revo- 
lution, and it is our duty to spread this conviction through all classes 
Christianity is the greatest enemy of socialism. When God 
is expelled from human brains, what is called the Divine Grace will 
at the same time be banished ; and when the heaven above appears noth- 
ing more than an immense falsehood, men will seek to create for them- 
selves a heaven below." ("Sozial Demokrat," vol. i, page 310. Ency- 
clopedia of Social Reforms, 1st edition, William D. P. Bliss, page 896-897.) 

Is all this for or against religion? Has it nothing to do 
with religion? As a matter of fact socialists do all they can 
do, all they dare do, against religion. For if they serve their 
"Cause" they shall necessarily assault Christian standards 
and practices. Hence it is that concessions to religious senti- 
ment can have no meaning save as soothing syrup to the em- 
bryonic socialist mind. 

New comers talk big of what they know little. It is often 
said that the supreme test of socialist belief is his demand for 



Political Atheism. 127 

the complete overthrow of the present wage-system and the. 
substitution therefor of the co-operative commonwealth, that 
you may be a Protestant, a Catholic, or of no religion at all 
but if you believe in this you are a socialist. But Leo XIII 
has declared that a man cannot be a Catholic and a socialist. 
Neither can a Protestant or a Jew remain true to his belief 
in God and God's revelation and propagate the economics of 
socialism, because the theory of surplus-value rests upon 
atheism as its " scientific" ground floor. Hence the signed 
editorial in Justice (London, Eng., 9-30-1909), puts the whole 
issue to the touchstone of common sense, in popular phrase. 
We quote: 

"Roman Catholics, I gladly recognize, have become very good 
socialists, but only on the condition of becoming very bad Catholics." 

We say advisedly the touchstone of common sense, for 
if one believes himself to be at once a Christian and a socialist 
he should learn better by the study of socialist classics. " Our 
philosopher" states the case too plainly to miscarry its mean- 
ing. We quote: 

"Bnt where man becomes conscious of his task, when he recognizes 
in himself the absolute organizer, there the place of the religious concep- 
tion is taken by the anti- religious social-democracy ." (p. 121.) 

"Even among our comrades . . . They say: Christ was 
the first socialist. Yet socialism and Christianity differ from each other 
as the day does from the night. Indeed, all religion is servile, but Christi- 
anity is the most servile of the servile." (P. 122, "Philosophical Essays," 
Joseph Dietzgen, Chicago 1906.) 

Ah, just so! When the abstract man — that thing which 
has no place on earth — recognizes himself, it will be the sig- 
nal, ho doubt, for the pig to recognize himself, and then as 
Carlyle sagely observes, the pig shall cease to be a pig. So 
also when man shall have recognized himself as the "absolute 
organizer," he shall be no longer the human being that ex- 
isted, so it shall make but little difference to men whether 
Dietzgen gives the place once taken by the religious concept 
to the pig that was, or to some other animal that shall make 

"■ — the progress or development of religion consists in its gradual 
dissolution.". (Page 118.) 



128 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

With man no man, with religion dissolved, it shall be a 
matter of indifference that Dietzgen et al give positive assur- 
ance that not alone the religious instinct is made to quit its 
seat, but that common sense must also get off its base to make 
a pedestal for the socialist creed. 

In a lecture given throughout the country, Franklin H. 
Wentworth, ex-minister and sometime editor of the Socialist 
Spirit, hangs one hour of oratory upon two absurdities, to wit: 

"Organized society is a huge conspiracy against manhood," and 
"Truth needs no institutions.' ' 

When with a fetching gesture Mr. Wentworth flings both 
Church and State out to the dogs, a multitude of "sweaty- 
night-caps," modern variety, greet the roof of Paine Hall in 
honor of the fell occasion. 

Of course an abstract man may get on very well with no 
institutions, truthful or otherwise. But good old Democracy 
wants a body, a state to do its work just as good old human 
nature wants each man his living temple to dwell therein. 
It is true that democracy is a principle which is embodied 
within the breasts of men ; does it follow that democracy " needs 
no institutions" within which men are democratically related 
to one another ? Certainly not ! Democracy finds an embodiment 
in the civil structure of the American people. How highly 
perfected within the nation shall be the principle of demo- 
cracy? Just as high as the flame of democracy burns in the 
breast of the American people, just so highly will the govern- 
ment of the United States demonstrate democracy. Fancy 
democracy without an institution through which its quality may 
become operative? Just fancy democracy without democracy? 

To do so, one must fancy that which does not exist in 
fancy. Just fancy one's fancying that which he cannot fancy. 
Good nonsense this, but not good sense which these ministerial 
socialists talk, who would retain religion but demolish the 
institutions of religion. To attempt to separate religion from 
the Church is mere intellectual tomfoolery. 

"You are gentlemen of brave mettle ; you 
Would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she 
Would continue in it five weeks without 
Changing." (The Tempest.) 



Political Atheism. 129 

So a change from nonsense to more nonsense is the strenu- 
ous occupation which engages the whole attention of the philo- 
sophical gentlemen of the Herron school of ex-ministers, who 
adorn the socialist rostrum. Oh, no the religious instinct 
should not be eradicated from the human heart; it should be 
left un-Churched to perish. The Church militant should be 
stripped and beaten; it should be crucified and shut up in 
the tomb, out of sight. Certainly, these " after-christian " 
Pagan professors are thoroughly opposed to the use of the 
socialist platform for religious propaganda. Dr. George D. 
Herron himself has most effusively rolled up his sleeves and 
taken off his intellectual coat to insist that the socialist plat- 
form shall ever be used for just what it was intended — an un- 
relenting assault upon the Christian Church. For it is just 
as it ever was, not the mob that is in the lead, but the intellec- 
tually degenerate who egg on the fury of the people against 
they know what — against the only power on earth that can 
save them from the hireling whose own they are not. We 
quote : 

"The worship and joy of life, which is our inheritance from the 
Pagans, is still with us in spite of the Puritan and the monk. 

"With Christianity we have, as socialists, a different problem to face. 
It is the system of Christianity that we have with us, and the spirit of Jesus 
that is hid and bound; and the spirit of Jesus cannot escape until 
Christianity is destroyed. There could be no greater antithesis, no deeper 
gulf, than that between Jesus and the Christian system. And nothing so 
surely as Christianity stands for all that is worse in capitalism ; for all that 
is weak and mean in the human spirit ; for all that represents the basest 
and most puerile modes of gaining power. There is no such force making 
for the destruction of spiritual integrity and courage, and for the unman- 
ning and deceiving of the race, as the system or religion which so mon- 
strously bears Christ's name, and so characteristically misrepresents him. 
Among no class of men is there so beggarly a conception of what it means 
to tell or be the truth, as among the official classes of religion ; and among 
no other class is there so parasitical a servility. This has always been so, 
and it will continue to be so as long as there is an official religious class. 
It is in the nature of things that it should be so ; for organized religion is 
always the economic dependent of the ruling class. 

"Christianity is a huge and ghastly parasite, consuming billions of 
treasure out of the labor and the patience of the people, and is supremely 
interested in keeping the people in economic and spiritual subjection to 
capitalism. The spiritual deliverance of the race depend on its escape from 
this parasite. The world must be saved from its salvations. 



130 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"But soon the church will have no sources of power within itself. 
It will discover that capitalism cannot save it, since capitalism cannot save 
itself, and will then seek to fasten itself upon the socialist movement- — not 
for the sake of socialism, but for the sake of ecclesiasticism, or the religious 
system. With these approaches of Christianity the socialist revolutioa 
should have nothing to do. To Christianize socialism would be to destroy 
it, and to perpetuate a capitalized and decadent Christianity. Every 
attempt of the church to serve socialism will be for the sake of self-preser- 
vation, and not for the sake of the socialist cause, just as churches are es- 
tablished in working-class quarters of the city to reach the masses, not for 
the sake of helping them to freedom and justice, but for the sake of 
exploiting them as spiritual property for the church." 

This red hot rebellion against the authority of the Living 
God was published in Wilshire's, in The Advance, and in The 
Worker, Nov. 10-1901. There has been no abatement in the 
expression of like opinion, and yet as inconsistency is the only 
jewel which the promoters of the revolution have in their 
casket, while the "learned" from Marx to Lewis are inveighing 
against religion — some "scientifically" and others "philosophi- 
cally," the carttail orators are officially instructed otherwise: 

"The following suggestions for the guidance of our speakers were 
adopted after an afternoon of thorough discussions. 

2. Do not antagonize the followers of any religious belief or the 
members of any race or sect. 

3. Do not advocate nor oppose Christianity, Christian Science, 
Judaism, or Free Thought." (The Call, 7-24-1910.) 

However, this not the highest lustre of their one jewel, 
that has been rubbed up recently, since their political setback 
in Milwaukee. It is insisted that up to now the socialist propa- 
ganda has never — oh, no! never!! attacked religion, but now 
"since the Catholic Church has become a 'political party' in 
Milwaukee, it shall take all that is coming to it." They 
will be good, very, very good, but they will not turn the other 
cheek for : 

"Most of those taking part in the discussion were of the same mind, 
i. e., not to fight the church, and not to mind if they throw stones at us, 
but if they strike us with one, then pick it up and throw it back and strike 
them." (The Call, 4-5-1911.) 

So while words have not lost their wonted meaning, it 
is certain that men holding an irresponsible philosophy do 



Political Atheism. 131 

take base and puerile modes of gaining votes. More's the pity, 
socialists do live what they believe. Because the economic 
''science" lying back as the mainspring of party action will 
permit of no concept of truth, to be followed in the person of 
our Lord, these politicians can have but a crooked conception 
of what truth demands in the practical relations between man 
and man. So also, in obedience to the natural law that those 
who have been the highest, fall the lowest when they fall, 
the ministerial socialists failing to revamp their churches into 
socialist organizations, with the materialist conception of his- 
tory as the basis of faith (if faith it may be called) immediately 
mount a high horse and assume the position of infallible in- 
terpreters of religious law. It was one time the hope of the 
writer that religious men would enter the socialist movement 
and thus add to it the quality it so greatly stood in need of — 
but we confess our error. In the first place religious qualities 
cannot be grafted upon this atheistic trunk. In the second 
place the use of religious phraseology, indulged in freely by 
the ex-ministers, but pushes true religious emotions further 
into the slush and slime of materialism. One has but to read 
Dr. Herron's publications while he was yet a minister of the 
Congregational Church, and compare them with his recent 
works, from which the effusions quoted in this book are taken, 
to behold a rapid degeneracy in the quality of his work. This 
intellectual decay is common to men of religious training — 
once parted from their religious moorings they drift into the 
irrational method of argument native to the atheist. 

Worldly ambition is surely not a virtue in religious circles, 
but ambition founded upon pride and lust puts men into the 
full view of the public eye as leaders of the Socialist Party. 

We do not hesitate to say that the minister who shall be 
misled into the socialist movement, believing it to be the one 
modern avenue through which the condition of the working 
class may be bettered shall sooner or later bring down upon 
himself the wrath of the "class-conscious" socialists unless 
he shall quickly forsake God and permit himself to be groomed 
for the third degree in materialist monism. 

Without exception, every one of the ministers who have 
entered the Socialist Party have adopted the philosophy of 



132 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"economic determinism" and have enforced its materialistic 
teachings with the prestige of their former religious standing; 
or they have left the party wiser if not better men. 

Socialists have little use for religious teachers; they have 
times without number declared them to be "hypocrites" and 
"humbugs." 

J. Bruce Glasier, a prominent socialist of Great Britain, says : 

". . . In fact, frankly speaking, I don't want clergymen to 
become socialists — at least to any great extent. They serve the cause 
admirably as enemies — they would spoil it as friends. Wherever two or 
three clergymen are gathered together, there, surely, are hypocrisy and 
humbug in the midst of them! The blacker the hosts of the enemy 
becomes with clerical coats, the nearer and the easier will our victory be." 
("Men who are Socialists," "The Commonweal," Vol. 4, No. 139.) 

Mr. Glasier's speech is mildness itself in comparison to the 
utterances of the Herronistic school of ex-ministers. Though, 
perhaps, Prof. Herron's disciple, the once Rev. William Thurs- 
ton Brown, having so outdone his sometime "lily white" 
master that it may be said the leading atheist honors now belong 
to the former pastor of the Plymouth Church, Rochester, N. 
Y. At any rate, Mr. Brown is a favorite socialist sermonizer. 
We quote: 

"The truth is, as all thinking men are aware, we have no such thing 
as intellectual honesty in the sphere of religion. We have made religion 
a department of human thought and action in which moral principles 
do not figure. We have not even succeeded in getting a conception of 
God that has any moral quality. The deity men pray to and exhibit in 
theological systems is not a moral being. He does not act in accord with 
immutable principles, but at his own caprice or to meet unforseen 
emergencies. 

"Ethics has nothing to do with the Christianity of to-day. 

"It is intellectual dishonesty which seems to me altogether the most 
dangerous and menacing form of dishonesty prevalent in the world. And 
if any other country can excell our own in this respect, I could not on short 
notice name the country. I may be wrong, but after considerable obser- 
vation it seems to me we hardly know the meaning of intellectual honesty 
in this country. At least, I doubt very much if the Christian Church has 
any knowledge of it. And I know no reason why it should have. Unless 
I am seriously mistaken, we have branded as infidels and atheists about the 
only persons who have begun to cultivate the virtue of intellectual hon- 
esty." (Socialist Spirit, June 1902.) 



Political Atheism. 133 

We think this is strong color in proof that socialism is 
a menace to religion; that infidels and atheists are in control 
of the party propaganda. Don't you? Though Mr. Brown 
has yet a more lurid red on his political brush: 

"If ever in the history of the world any human institution was com- 
pletely and finally discredited, it is the religious institution, whose putrid 
and decaying carcass here at the beginning of the twentieth century 
menaces the life of men. 

"~- "Never in all the past did the religious institution seem more im- 
potent or despicable than now. Scientific research dissipated — as the 
meridian sun dissipates vapor — the whole philosophy upon which accepted 
religion is made to rest. And he who would enter its ministry must first 
of all envisage in his imagination a non-existant and impossible world, 
in order to become the mouthpiece of its message of fear to minds still 
steeped in ignorance and superstition. It stands before the world as a 
foe to research, an enemy of freedom of thinking, a purveyor of baseless 
superstitions, a morally impotent and an ethically monstrous factor in 
human society. The fearful hypocrisy to which we have come has been 
recently disclosed, not only in the moral obliquity of missionaries abroad 
and ministers at home, but far more in the spirit of unconcern with which 
the majority of our religionists treat the exposure made by our greatest 
satirist, Mark Twain. 

"What does the church offer? With what would it satisfy this new 
soul-hunger, too deep for words? With a baseless superstition about 
heaven and hell. With a lot of dry-as-dust dogmas. With creeds and 
rites, with manufactured sins and fictitious virtues. With a dualism that 
is destructive of all truth and sincerity. With a separation of life into 
'sacred* and 'secular' — as if life could be divided! As if it were not the 
supreme sacrilege thus to cleave asunder the divine unity of life!" (The 
Social Crusader, and The Advance, July 20, 1901.) 

Being drunk with the blood of anti-religion, both the so- 
cialist minister and the satirist (Poor Mark Twain! heaven 
and hell are realities to him now), having the same old, not 
a "new" soul-hunger, see life's problems not in rational re- 
lation, but in monstrous proportion. For it is the creed of 
infidels and atheists — the creed of the Socialist Party — that 
calls for the abandonment of reason. The zeal of these gentle- 
men in the service of the devil has without doubt a self-de- 
ceived sincerity in it. So must it be with the pitch-black mind 
when the light of faith is dead and the blaze of pride is furious. 
The plain truths of history have been forgotten, or mayhap, 
never read aright. For the simple story of history is that 



134 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Christianity has ever been the grand patron of the sciences and 
of the arts. 

Of course, we do not mean to slight off the fact that a 
false science has taken up its determined abode in the minds 
of men who have at their command good English and the 
magazines, nor do we mean to ignore the still more deplorable 
fact that newspaper science is persuading the masses that God- 
lessness is the first step towards knowledge — towards eco- 
nomic emancipation; in a word, towards the realization of an 
ideal state, the details of which lie hazily in the offing. This 
book is meant to show that socialism is a false light, which 
lures men to their moral destruction, and the state to its eco- 
nomic disaster. 

If religion "calls for the abandonment of reason," how 
is it that Bacon, Magnus, Gerbert, Copernicus, Cusa, Becquerel, 
Kepler, Linne, Fontenelle, Galileo, Faraday, Descartes, Galvani, 
Newton, Ampere, Boscovich, Volta, Pastuer were men of science ? 
They were religious men ? Oxford and Cambridge, Aberdeen and 
St. Andrews, Upsala and Copenhagen, Paris, Toulouse and Mont- 
pelier, Freiberg, Leipsic, Heidelberg, Tubingen, Wurzburg, Cra- 
cow, Prague, Vienna, Bologna, Naples, Pisa, Turin, Rome, Sala- 
manca, Seville, Valladolid, Coimbra, Louvain are celebrated seats 
of learning, established during the middle ages by the Church 
and its religious upholders. Were these places established " for 
the abandonment of reason? " 

Just the opposite! Rather is the abandonment of reason 
the usual experience with these ministers of good intentions, 
and that little learning which is so dangerous a thing, for once 
God, myself, and then all things else, cease to be the ac- 
knowledged order of all mental processes then, human reason is 
no more in its rightful place. Under the rush of socialist psy- 
chology, these minds swinging too near the revolving theory 
of economic determinism, are caught just as the long hair 
of an operative is sometimes caught in the big wheel of the 
machinery. Though in the one case the scalp gives way, but 
in the other death, moral death, is almost certain. For once 
the acceptance of the idea that the human race has merely an 
animal origin, takes a fast grip upon the imagination the mind 
perverts every thought it touches; and sooner than later per- 



Political Atheism. 135 

verse thoughts are translated into perverse deeds, together 
with a self-satisfaction which increases at that rate with 
which Faith and reason are abandoned for animalism and 
fatalism. 

In "How I Became a Socialist," the Reverend William 
Thurston Brown gives the common experience of the culti- 
vated, but superficially educated persons experience upon the 
acceptance of the socialist creed. We quote: 

"Finally, contemplation of the problem of social justice led to a new- 
reading of history, a new look at life. And the conviction steadily took 
shape in my mind that my whole philosophy as to the paramount influence 
of the individual in determining human institutions and social conditions, 
was wrong. Reading, experience and reflection forced me to the philosophy 
of economic determinism, and I could not name a document of equal 
length which seems to me to contain so much truth as the 'Communist 
Manifesto' of Marx and Engels. 

"Of course, the acceptance of the idea of an animal origin of the 
human race and the main conclusions of materialistic evolution involved 
a complete reconstruction of my thought world. I thus saw history 
to be an upward struggle out of animalism toward a goal which no man 
is capable of naming." (Comrade, New York, May, 1903.) 

Mr. Brown is quite mistaken, animalism shall rise no 
higher than animalism. But because animalism is not the au- 
thor of man this perverse notion will carry man not up, nor 
down to the wholesome non-moral estate of the brute, but 
rather into the festering and putrid jaws of corruption from 
which one may go further on into hell. Or one may escape 
by the one sure road of repentance. If one shall humble him- 
self before God and his fellow-man; forsaking his pride, he 
may return to the consciousness that God creates everything 
but evil, — man of himself having the power to do that. 

However, it was but recently (19 10) that 'Mr. Brown re- 
signed from the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, that 
he might carry his accumulated perversity of understanding 
(sic) into deeds. 

In his farewell sermon, Mr. Brown states clearly his so- 
cialist creed, and there is, of course, no room for God therein : 

"Within the past sixty years the world has gained the greatest clue 
to knowledge that all the ages of human history record : the law of evolu- 
tion as the mode of creation and the explanation of life. The human 



136 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

mind has never before grasped a principle that so completely explains the 
meaning of the world and life as that principle does. Until that law was 
discovered, mankind was at sea as to the real meaning of the world and of 
life." (The Call, 8-21-1910.) 

Oh ! the pity of it. To be blind and to lead the blind into 
the pit! What could be the sense in going on forever and 
ever towards a goal which no man is capable of naming? 

How shall one understand the process unless one knows 
what is proceeding? 

How shall one understand man unless he himself is made 
the subject of study? 

How shall one study himself unless he studies his origin and 
his destiny? 

Studying his origin and his destiny, one is led to the First 
Cause and to the Final End — God. While the study of one's 
own evolution shall show him how economically or how viciously 
one is using his several talents and powers in consciously build- 
ing up his life phenomena to its mortal conclusion. Thus is 
one's evolutionary phenomena the external evidence of his 
internal character development. It could not be read aright, 
save he, the object, to which his evolutionary development 
merely testifies, be known. Such is a simple and natural ex- 
planation which right reason gives of man's existence here 
on earth. But we are not left with only our reason operating 
upon a foundation of the natural cognition of ourselves. There 
is super-added the Christian revelation. It is evident that Mr. 
Brown has never thought it worth while to put himself under 
the instruction of the Vicar of Christ. 

It is certain that over against the natural intelligence of 
the human mind and the illumination of Christian Faith the 
everlasting running after something one shall never even hope 
to get, should not suffice to completely explain the meaning of 
the "world and life" to a right-bright mind. 

Yet it is certain that there is heroic blood running in Mr. 
Brown's veins. He is, without doubt, ready to wreck his life, 
as his friends judge, to carry out his purpose. And what might 
that non-conscious malice be? Surely, the crystalization of 
his perverse philosophy into a counterpart of perverse deeds. 
Mr. William Thurston Brown announces in The Call (8-21-1910) 



Political Atheism. f 3 7 

that the sure key to all "our problems" is the establishment of 
the Ferrer — the Modern — Schools in America. We quote: 

"Francisco Ferrer, the Spanish educator and martyr, saw clearly 
that the only way to justice and freedom for the people of Spain is through 
popular knowledge. Ignorant Spain must remain enslaved Spain. . . 

"To a church that lives by superstition and a state based on 
ignorance and exploitation, the Modern School was a capital crime, and 
its founder was shot. 

"The problems of America are as critical for America as those of 
Spain for Spain. At bottom they are the same." 

Indeed, for the Modern School the problem is everywhere 
this, and none other, the uprooting of Christian education, so 
in the Northwest a school of four departments, with a gradu- 
ated course of study is proposed to give the ''facts of science" 
to pupils from the primary to the adult class, that shall have 
a false interpretation of human phenomena and no adequate 
cause of human life as its foundation stone. 

Yet, though evolution does not and cannot find a place to 
begin, for the simple reason that it is itself nothing but process, 
even the Ferrer schools are not so daft as to try to start with- 
out something to begin with and some place to begin. So 
quite arbitrarily this key to nothing is to begin with the plane- 
tary and stellar universe. Thence to ("a sense of the place 
of the individual life in the moral process") which, in right 
reason, without God, is neither here nor there. From this 
nowhere with a hop and a skip the school lands right plum 
on the problems of the twentieth century. 

Following this most marvellous exploit, there is listed the 
authors who shall well prepare socialist minds, not for the key 
itself, oh, no, but for what is unlocked by the use of the key. 
Namely, practical anarchy as applied to industry. Not merely 
to commercial life, but to the household industries which make 
up the home life as well. This list is truly instructive, for 
there should be no denying that socialist educators (sic) know 
their own in the realm of literature. We quote: 

"The Literature and Modern Drama Club meeting once a week at 
1 260 East 5th South, will study the writings of the leading modern thinkers 
such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Ibsen, Shaw, Maeterlinch, Wells, 
Anatole France, Brieux and others." 



138 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Under History, the Philosophy of History and Economics, 
no name is listed not strictly belonging to the socialist school. 

Surely political atheism should be unable to draw a mul- 
titude of recruits from a populace educated in the Christian 
religion, but to launch the socialist regime a multitude of athe- 
ist votes are necessary. There is no denying that the key 
to the situation which shall preserve or degrade this nation, 
is the education of the children, for the battle now begun will 
at least wear out a generation. 

In this sad confession of his down-fall to the groveling level 
of humanism, Mr. Brown's experience is but typical of hun- 
dreds of others, who being very superficially instructed in that 
Master of science — Theology — fall an easy prey to their own 
desire to be of service to the downtrodden in a wicked world. 
The one key to this disaster is the service of man for the love 
of God, nothing of less worth will suffice. So, one shall one 
day receive his commission by the authority of God. 

In support of the fact that the socialist leaders, from Karl 
Marx and Engels down to the clerical collar socialists of to- 
day, have all attacked religion, look at this from The Daily 
People, Friday, June 5, 1903 (official organ of the Socialist 
Labor Party) : 

"It is high time that we socialists dropped our timidity about attacking 
those priests and ministers who, under the guise of religion, and wrapped 
in its sacred folds, so underhandedly attack and falsely represent social- 
ism. 

"The working people are rapidly becoming aware of the fact that the 
Church of to-day is the same as it has always been — a stumbling block 
and bar to progress and civilization. It makes no difference what its 
creed may be, whether it be Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, 
Lutheran, Episcopalian or any other kind of creed, they all stand united 
as defenders of capitalism. " 

The People should never have charged itself with timidity, 
for it is bold beyond conscience, it should rather convict it- 
self with duplicity. It is a master in that double dealing 
by which the unwary man of little faith is engulfed in the psy- 
chology of socialist atmosphere to his undoing. 

Though as we have said, it is our chief purpose here to 
get down the testimony in proof of the fact that the socialist 



Political Atheism. 139 

creed is being worked out into the warp and woof of our every- 
day life by means of a political party; that the Socialist 
Party is not in truth concerned with issues of government, 
rather that this creed is practically gnawing away at the vitals 
of our nation and straining against the permanency of the 
family, and this for the one sufficient reason that the socialist 
creed is utterly Godless. We proceed by presenting something 
from J. Sketchley in "Our Task To-day." 

"In every age and in every country the Church and the State have been 
the great centres of despotism. The Church and the State, the throne and 
the altar, the priest and the soldier, have ever made war on the people. 
It is the same to-day. In almost every age efforts have been made to 
reform the Church, to diminish its power, to free it from corruption. 
Rivers of blood have been shed, and thousands of martyrs have given up 
their lives for the purification of the Church. But the Church is still the 
great engine for enslaving the minds of men, for binding mankind in 
ignorance and superstition. And the same with the State. For how 
many generations have not the best of nature's nobles laboured and 
suffered and died in their endeavours to reform the State. But the State 
is still supreme. It is still the great centre of despotism, still the seat of 
centralized tyranny. It still claims unquestioned obedience to its decrees. 
The State, like the Church, is a relic 01 barbarism. If we would raise man 
to dignity, in place of the Church we must have a free and rational system 
of education. If we would raise man to liberty, in place of the State we 
must have the free organization of society." ("The Commonweal," 
vol. 4, No. 137.) 

That is to say reduce civilization to chaos and eradicate 
from man the consciousness of his Divine origin. 

Mr. Sketchley proceeds towards what he conceives to be 
liberty upon two mortal blunders. First, that the Church 
should be reformed by diminishing its power. But the Christian 
Church is and ever shall be absolute in Truth and so in authority. 
Second, that the state should speak from the altar of God, 
as its rostrum is not and never was the Christian doctrine. 
The divine right of kings was set up in defiance of the authority 
of the Church. If we render unto God what is God's, we shall 
never render unto Caesar what belongs to God, though all the 
while we render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. 

That the Revolution is the daughter of the Reformation, 
Mr. Franklin H. Wentworth points out. It is, of course, but 



140 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

natural that Defiance having taken its departure from Right- 
ful Authority should travel at a break-neck pace. He says: 

"Social democracy has unquestionably given the death blow to the 
church in Germany, and the Pope has but to glance at the city of Berlin 
to find a justification of all his fears regarding socialism. German phil- 
osophy, born out of the Lutheran reformation, began the work which the 
social democracy has well nigh completed. 

"It is not the Catholic Church alone which recognizes in social 
democracy a foe. The Protestant Church of Germany has been allied 
to the state since the disfranchisement of the Jesuit societies, hence the 
socialist leaders make no secret of opposition to the church. To every 
church in Berlin, in fact throughout Germany, there are half a dozen halls 
devoted to socialist propaganda. Social democracy finds headway easy 
against a church long since riddled into shreds by Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, 
Kant and Hegel." (Editorial, "Socialism and the German Church, '* The 
Socialist Spirit, May, 1902.) 

One should give a counter " glance" at the work of the 
Centre Party in Germany, to go no further, for signs that the 
Catholics are keenly alive to their responsibilities of defend- 
ing the Fatherland against the attacks of its atheist philoso- 
phers. German revolt against right-reason hardened into the 
"Communist Manifesto." That the union of "higher criticism" 
and economic determinism is now bearing its vile fruit, Mr. 
Went worth's editorial gives evidence. 

The "Communist Manifesto" is the fountain source of en- 
thusiasm from which these ex-ministers drink to the dregs the 
cup which pollutes the human heart and stultifies the human 
mind. It is so big with self-pride that it will not stop to hear 
what plain truth has to say, — it will not stop to answer: 

"The charges against communism made from a religious, a phil- 
osophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint are not deserving 
of serious examination." ("Communist Manifesto.") 

We shall next present the testimony of five socialist papers : 
And we kindly ask the public consideration as to whether or 
not there is truth in the declaration made in the 1908 platform 
that : The Socialist Party is not concerned with matters of re- 
ligious belief. We quote : 

"Now that the Holy (?) Church has come out and declared openly 
against Socialism, the socialists MUST, either come out the same way, 
and declare against and FIGHT the hoary Beast, 'Mother of harlots* — 



Political Atheism. 141 

ROME! or, Shut up Shop! ! !" — Editorial. (The People's Press, Chicago, 
January 10, 1903.) 

"For us we fear the enmity of the (Catholic) Church less than its 
friendship — and this we should say equally of any other church or any 
other organization accepting the capitalist ideal." (The Worker, May 1, 
1902.) 

"The waves of socialism are washing against the walls of the Vatican, 
and it is doubtful whether the next Pope will remain in the classic land of 
Papal tradition or move to some more comfortable place. Unless it 
retires to one of the poles of the earth, ecclesiastical hierarchy, like all other 
despotism, will soon be crowded off the earth." (International Socialist 
Review, Chicago, 111., Aug. 1902.) 

"The anti-socialist agitation Of the churches thus proves once more 
that the continued disuse, or misuse, of any faculty finally results in its 
degeneration. Having taught and believed, or professed to believe, for 
centuries, certain ideas which are opposed to the plain evidence of our 
sane senses, the clericals have become victims of their own methods. 
Having stifled the demands of reason in every possible way, they have 
finally lost all power of reasoning themselves. As a class, they have dulled 
the minds of vast masses by their collective efforts. But now, they are 
falling into the very pit which they have so long dug for others. Instead 
of advancing with the times, we see them engaged in the mad attempt to 
fall into the spokes of the whirling wheels of progress, and of grafting 
mediaeval superstitions into the mental life of a society living under 
fundamentally revolutionized economic conditions." (The Appeal to 
Reason, April 11, 1903.) 

"So it is with the churches. Far better is it to have the open hatred 
and opposition of the Catholic Church, from the Pope down to Father 
Heiter, than the maudlin sympathy and friendship of some of our would 
be friends. Let us have the fight ; in this case it is a good deal better than 
the friendship. There has been too much of a tendency in the movement 
of late to measure socialism by the measure of Christianity; too much 
attempting to link the two. Let us beware of these attempts! Socialism 
has nothing to gain from any such alliances ; the church must gain at the 
expense of the socialist movement. The very word socialism embodies 
an ethical concept infinitely higher than anything that organized religion 
has ever known. Nothing could well be more dangerous than the no doubt 
well-meant attempts to prove socialism true by an appeal to religion. 
Favorable enough to the latter, these attempts are disastrous to the 
former. It is no business of ours to prove anything of the kind. It is 
for us to proclaim and defend our own social faith. If that is not in accord 
with the teachings of the church — well, so much the worse for the church!" 
(The Comrade, New York, April, 1902.) 

These five quotations from five socialist papers speak in 
the self-same tones that, without intermission is ringing out 



i 42 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

from the entire socialist press the message of hate and ill-will 
towards our Christian civilization. 

As to whether or not socialism concerns itself with matters 
of religious belief, surely the answer must be that it greatly 
concerns itself with religion with the purpose of destroying 
it from off the face of the earth. 

We shall conclude this division of our work with the pres- 
entation of data from international socialist authorities, quot- 
ing from world-renowned authors. The matter presented 
must needs show that in spite of its claim of being an eco- 
nomic science, that the socialist movement is at its core neither 
industrial nor political in character, but per se a contention 
against religious authority sustained by religious cravings on 
its human side. Hence its primary mission is to destroy the 
Church, that upon the death of its acknowledged rival it may 
gain complete control over the power of the masses. Right 
being slain Might shall be dressed in the robes of full authority. 
Together with the quotations presented for its decision, we de- 
sire to ask the American public one further question: Shall 
socialists be given the political power with which to work 
damnation ? 

First and foremost stands the German movement, both, 
from a political and from a literary point of view. Karl Kautsky, 
editor of Die Neue Zeitung, Stuttgart, Germany, author of 
many socialist books, several of which have been translated 
into English. Writing on the subject of "Anti-Clericalism 
and Socialism" in the Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kansas, Feb- 
ruary 21, 1903, he says: 

"The capitalist class and the working class cannot fight together 
against the church. The class interests of the working class demand a 
plan of action totally different from that of the capitalist class, also in 
religious matters. The working class occupies a peculiar position among 
the present social classes. It is a subject class. It rules no other class 
and cannot elevate itself over any other class in the economic order. 
When the working class will conquer the political power, it can only abolish 
all classes and also suppress its own character as a class. It cannot use 
its political power to put a new ruling class into the place of the present 
one. 

"The working class, therefore, aims at the conquest of the political 
powers for the purpose of eliminating all instruments or class rule from 
social life, not with the intention of making them its own. For this 



Political Atheism. 143 

reason it is opposed to the church, which constitutes one of these instru- 
ments of class rule. 

"But the church does not limit itself to this function. The religion 
which it professes and teaches still meets the pressing wants of great 
masses. Being a subject class, whose mental and spiritual liberty is 
restricted by all other classes, the working class must declare for religious 
freedom. Without this it would prevent the mass of believers from 
satisfying their religious cravings, and thus come into contradiction with 
its own historical mission." 

These three paragraphs were, of course, confusing to the 
mind untrained in socialist thought. To assume that the work- 
ing class aims at the conquest of the political power for what- 
soever reason one must draw upon pure imagination. For 
the working class aims at no such thing. It is the leaders of 
the socialist movement who are not and never have been rep- 
resentative of the working class, who aim to control the working 
class vote with which to work their own will. Which will is 
confessedly against that of the working class, for as well as 
Kautsky, the leaders in general know that the Christian re- 
ligion still meets the pressing wants of the great masses. 

Second, Enrico Ferri, Socialist Deputy of the Italian Par- 
liament, editor of The Avanti, a socialist daily, Rome, Italy, 
whom the International Socialist Review of Chicago (April, 1903), 
declares to be the foremost exponent of socialism now living, 
has this to say in the Social Democrat of London, England, on 
October 15, 1902: 

"When one undertakes socialistic propaganda and organization then 
it follows that human conscience must be opposed to every form of 
intellectual dictation, and still more to the clerical spirit. But socialists 
need not engage in a direct anti-clerical propaganda. They are free 
thinkers, and must, therefor, respect the faith of sincere believers, especi- 
ally if they are peasants, among whom it is impossible to engage in an 
anti-clerical propaganda. 

"If some of the middle classes carry on an anti-clerical agitation the 
socialistic party should not stop them. They should rather help them 
against an assault of reactionary forces." 

Two points here should be especially noted, first, that it 
is the leaders not the workers who map out and intend to carry 
out the socialist policy. Next, that it is frankly stated that anti- 
religious propaganda were of no avail amongst the peasants 



i44 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

of Italy. Only when its basic motive is concealed can political 
atheism make progress amongst the working class. 

Third, Henry Quelch, editor of London Justice, official 
weekly newspaper of the Social Democratic Federation of 
England since 1892, is still (191 1) considered the leading editor 
in the socialist movement of Great Britain. He gives his po- 
sition in an article entitled Clericalism and the Socialist Attitude 
Thereto : 

(The Social Democrat, March 15, 1903.) 

"In answer to your letter asking me for my opinion as to the attitude 
of the Socialist Party towards the Church, I think that the only line to 
be taken is that of uncompromising hostility. 

"The Church is a powerful, crafty, and resourceful enemy. It is, 
perhaps, a mistake to provoke her, but she can never be the friend of 
democratic progress, or of the intellectual development of the people 
and will always be their irreconcilable foe. The more friendly she is the 
more dangerous she will be. 

"As an institution, the Church stands for obscurantism and for 
reaction. There is no iniquity so vile, no crime, however monstrous, that 
the Church has not blessed and sanctified if perpetrated in the interests 
of the rich and powerful. 

"The Church is one of the pillars of capitalism, and the true function 
of the clergy is to chloroform the workers, to make docile wage-slaves 
of them, patient and contented with their lot in this world while expecting 
a glorious reward in the next. 

"As long as the Church holds the minds of the workers in its grip, 
there will be little hope of freeing their bodies from capitalist supremacy.'! 

British frankness is refreshing, however dark the ignorance 
which represents the Church to be exactly the opposite of 
what Christianity truly is. In his own way Mr. Quelch urges 
the point that socialism and religion are engaged in an irre- 
concilable war. 

Fourth, we present the testimony of Emile Vandervelde, 
member of the Chamber of Deputies of Belgium; the ac- 
knowledged leader of the socialist movement there. He is 
the author of books having an international circulation. Writing 
for the he Mouvement Socialiste and The Social Democrat (Janu- 
ary, 1903), he says: 

"Beaten in Holland, crushed in Belgium, reduced to a minimum in 
Germany and Austria (we do not speak of England where the question is 
a different one), the Liberal Party can only continue to exist in Europe 



Political Atheism. 145 

either, as in Spain, by granting the demands of the Church, or, as in France 
and Italy, by obtaining the support of socialists. 

"In France, for instance, we see most of the socialist forces taking part 
in the struggle, enthusiastically helping the Radical tactics, advocating 
against the Church the use of violent and vigorous laws, and also attacking 
virulently all religious ideas. And . . . . the anti-Ministerialist 
Socialist deputies are not the least to urge the Government by vote and 
by speech when it is violently struggling against the Clerical and National- 
ist forces. 

"In the end the question to be solved is What is the essential aim of 
socialism ? There is not a socialist who would hestitate to say that it is 
the emancipation of the workers, the freedom of the proletariat — and by 
this freedom we mean its complete freedom, the abolition of all slavery 
in the spiritual sphere as well as in the material sphere. 

"Is it not a fact . . . that some of our comrades advocate the 
union of all workers, and on the other hand act so as to make that union 
morally impossible? Is it not sad, for example, after a lecture in which 
we have stated that the socialist party respects all beliefs, to hear com- 
rades . . . begin singing that odious verse of the 'Carmagnole' which 
I have for my part, never heard but with feeling of disgust : 

'Throw Christ in the gutter, 
The Virgin in the stable, 
And the Pope to the devil.' 

"I leave them the Pope — for painters of the Middle Age put in hell 
the monks and popes, but why should socialists be so inconsistent or so 
ridiculous as to insult the Crucified One — the victim of Pharisees and 
priests, or to vilify the Virgin — the sublime image of maternal grief? Do 
they think that these attacks will bring to socialism the workers who are 
still faithful sons of the Church ? And as a general rule do they think that 
by forbidding processions, by ordering priests not to wear their cassocks, 
by organizing public dinners on Good Friday, by proposing oppressive 
laws against Catholics, that they will advance the cause of the Revolution ? 
. . Can a sincere believer follow the Church's teachings and yet be 
a socialist ? We are bound to admit that both in philosophy 

and politics there must be war between socialism and the Church." 

Vandervelde's feelings of disgust are caused by the assault 
upon good taste, not because sacred persons have been out- 
raged; because the tactics laid down by the leaders have been 
violated by the rank and file, not because Good Friday has 
been desecrated. To make a mock of the Lord God is " odious," 
not because religion has a claim to defense, but because it re- 
tards the advance of the Revolution. This is "sad" but not 
soc.rilegious. 



146 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Fifth, Ernest Belfort Bax, whom we have introduced else- 
where, in discussing the issue, makes no pretence that it is the 
workmen who seek to throw off obedience to religious authority. 
From The Religion of Socialism we take his recorded opinion, de- 
livered in the most highly approved evolutionistic phraseology: 

"The religious aspect of our capitalistic civilization is dogmatic 
Protestantism. . . . The predominantly commercial states of 
Christendom are the predominantly Protestant ones. . . . The 
religious creed of the capitalist bourgeoisie is dogma, minus sacerdotalism. 
The religious creed of the land-owning aristocracy is sacerdotalism, with 
a nominal adhesion to dogma. The watchword of one is, an infallible 
Church ; the standard of the other, an infallible Bible. The Romish or 
High-Anglican squire represents incarnate land, on its religious side; the 
Baptists haberdasher, incarnate capital, (p. 77.) 

"And now we come to the question, What is to be the end of these 
things? 

"Socialism has been well described as a new conception of the world 
presenting itself in industry as co-operative Communism, in politics as 
international Republicism, in religion as atheistic Humanism. . . 
The establishment of society on a socialistic basis would imply the defini- 
tive abandonment of all theological cults, since the notion of a transcendent 
god or semi-divine prophet is but the counterpart and analogue of the 
transcendent governing class. So soon as we are rid of the desire of one 
section of society to enslave another the dogmas of an effete creed will lose 
their interest. As the religion of slave industry was Paganism ; as the 
religion of serfage was Catholic Christianity, or Sacredotalism ; as the 
religion of Capitalism is Protestant Christianity or Biblical Dogma ; so too 
the religion of collective and co-operative industry is Humanism, which is 
only another name for socialism." (P. 81.) 

Machine thinking is so delightfully easy, once the in- 
tellectual buzz-saw is started humming. It stops neither 
for truth nor for falsehood, for both have lost all significance 
in the recorded history of the race and in the facts of our every- 
day life. Socialist theory is everything — the current mode 
of production together with theology, which is the latest face 
of economics reflected in the stagnant pool of dominant opinion, 
is now close up to a catastrophe. Really, truly, hope-to-die, 
quite as close as at the time of other masterly predictions which 
are now some decades past. But as the ghastly mockery of 
human aspiration— our twentieth century civilization — is rather 
unlikely to quit quietly, so it is that atheism — humanism — so- 
cialism must be excused for blotting it out in blood and fire. 



Political Atheism. 147 

Socialism triumphant shall be almost as easy as thinking, 
minus the inconvenience of paying tribute to truth, if, ah! if 
only the working class will be persuaded to abandon Christ. 

Sixth, Leon Furnemont, member of the Belgian Cham- 
ber of Deputies (Social Democrat, August 15, 1903), having 
quoted other international leaders to the same effect, sets 
forth political atheism in very plain words: 

"Theoretically, no one denies that socialism is an integral doctrine, 
a true system of the cosmos having for its aim the complete enfranchisement 
of all human beings. And, moreover, how can we conceive a fraternal 
and free society with morals of submission and slavery? 

"The present day socialism, which is called scientific in order to 
distinguish it from the abstract theories of the first reformers, is based on 
the materialist conception of history. Could one imagine a more complete 
elimination of the absolute, without which no religion is possible? 

"If the direction of civilization is exclusively determined by the 
forms of economic production, religions themselves only appear as 
excrescences of a capitalist society, which are destined to disappear 
with it. 

"It is feared that the affirmation of a rationalistic and scientific 
philosophy would keep away from our organization a certain number of 
working men who still believe in the faith of their fathers. That is a 
vain fear; for revolutions, even of a social kind, are always the work of a 
minority, and the mass only understands afterwards. 

"Should we make war on the Church? But against whom should we 
fight ? Should it be against the windmills of the doctrinaires ? 

"We must wage an unrelenting war against the Church because she 
foments civil war among the workers. We must take away from her her 
control over public education which she uses to corrupt children who would 
otherwise become socialists. 

"We must fight her without weakness, for she is the only power 
which has dogmas, hierarchies, riches and agents who systematically 
attack us. We must attack her because her economics, her politics, her 
ethics are contrary to our ideal. 

"We must attack her because she is the only reactionary force which 
has any strength and which keeps us in voluntary slavery, and that is 
worst of all, as these Christian workingmen have really lost all idea of 
trying to become free." 

Socialist leaders all testify plainly to the fact that it i§ 
not the workmen who demand a regime of atheism, but the 
"learned," those holding the materialist conception of his- 
tory, which completely eliminates the absolute, without which 
religion is impossible. 



148 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Seventh, August Bebel, still (191 1) the veteran leader of 
the German movement, has not shown the slightest change 
in his views since the essay was published in Vorwaerts (1901) 
from which we quote: 

"Christianity is the enemy of liberty and of civilization. It has kept 
mankind in slavery and oppression. The Church and State have always 
fraternally united to exploit the people. Christianity and socialism are 
like fire and water." 

Not precisely; both fire and water are wholesome, normal 
elements. Yet the figure is something apt in that fire is a posi- 
tive element, it stands its ground and it mounts up higher, 
while water is a negative element, having no shape of its own, 
it takes the form of what it rests upon. Just as irreligion 
takes any old shape of blasphemy or corruption, religion has 
her own thoughts of construction, of truth and beauty. How- 
ever, as fire dries up water and water puts out fire, the question 
is, shall we have more or less of Bebel? 

Eighth, writing for the International Socialist Review 
(Aug., 1908), Isador LadofT declares that: 

"Religion spells death to socialism, just as socialism to religion. 
The moment socialism turns into a religion it loses all its vitality, all its 
progressiveness, it ossifies and turns into a superstition of fanatics, who 
never forget and never learn anything. Socialism is essentially, although 
not apparently, a free-thought movement. The thinking socialists are all 
free thinkers." 

Precisely! Free-thinking is necessary to political atheism. 
For the simplest of reasons the socialist mind may, if it be so 
pleased, think a kicking steer a turtle dove. Free thought 
is the enemy of right-thinking. For while right-thinking is 
bound by law as strict as that of the Medes and the Persians, 
free-thinking is from the requirements of reason, as free as 
anarchism personified. Sound thought is bound to take note 
that the content of two is two, whether one shall be consider- 
ing engines or apples, but free thought may take the bits and 
insist that the content of two is the content of the engines or 
the apples. Sound thought is bound to recognize that basic 
principles never change, however they are applied, but free 
thought has long since held the flabby notion that there is 



Political Atheism. 149 

nothing but change. Truly it were disastrous to give free- 
thought the civil powers, for socialist thinking doth make a 
man mad. 

Of course, it was no accident that after the days of '48 
the socialists of Germany were amongst the foremost in the 
Free Thought movement. So it was, that here in this country, 
that the platform of the Free Thinkers was first offered to 
socialists, thus affording to them the earliest opportunity to 
deliver their message to persons of some pretense to culture. 
To the vivid imagination of those who have inherited the con- 
tempt for religious authority, the free thought of the socialist 
sounds like a blast from the horn of liberty, though it is rather 
the shout at the last ditch of despair. This revolt against 
reason following on the heels of the rebellion against religion 
was voiced clearly by Wilhelm Marr. (In our first edition this 
quotation was erroneously assigned to Marx) : 

"We shall do well if we stir hatred and contempt against all existing 
institutions; we make war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the 
state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keystone of per- 
verted civilization; the true root of civilization; the true root of liberty, 
of equality, of culture, is atheism.". 

This was half a century ago, but any Sunday one may 
hear the self -same trump of the devil sounded at Paine Hall, 
where socialists are free thinkers and free thinkers are social- 
ists. Atheism, which not long since was made of diseased 
imagination and vile words, has now clothed itself with forms 
and records; 4,000 organizations throughout the country de- 
mand the suffrages of the working class — the strongest weapon 
of the state — to overthrow the whole existing social order. One 
may well say with Ferdinand, " Hell is empty, and all the devils 
are here/' 



"Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round 
about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, 
you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves.' ' 

Has socialism no concern with matters of religious belief, 
as its platform impudently affirms? 

From all the facts, historical and present, we must per- 
force conclude that the socialist movement is a world-wide 



150 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

attempt at the disruption of the civilization made by the race 
under the Providence of God. That it stands for devolution 
and not for evolution toward the perfection of human affairs. 
In short, that socialism and anarchism are, after all, cut from 
one and the same web of cloth. Socialism is the right wing 
and the more powerful for destruction, in that it seeks the po- 
litical power as its weapon of disaster rather than the stupid, 
the more impatient method of personal assault. It is the more 
dangerous in the same degree that political power is advanced 
over the strength of individual power. 

That the rank and file of the organization as well as the 
voters generally are wholly misled as to the real import of 
socialim, we well know. And that hundreds of idealists are 
engaged in centralizing power in the hands of men who would 
use it without scruple for a purpose as far as hell is from the 
heaven of their enthusiasm, we are free to presume. That 
the Socialist Party is swinging into line the numerous nega- 
tive hobby horses driven by sir knights of the quill, we know 
by the flocks of erratic newspapers declaring for socialism 
which find a nest in our waste basket. 

We take upon ourselves the task of making amends as far 
as we may to our country and to Almighty God for the of- 
fences unwittingly committed in working to give power to 
that philosophy which is now seen clearly to be an abomina- 
tion — to be the blare of false gods which leadeth to destruc- 
tion, rather than to that benign light which leadeth into wis- 
dom. It has pleased us to give over all that was necessary to 
the service of this movement — this seducer of civic virtue — 
this defamer of God and man — this movement whose light is 
darkness and whose intellectual and moral darkness grows 
blacker, and by swift marches. It shall now be our pleasure 
to give over all that is necessary to the promotion of industrial 
equities as against this devil with its specious cry of liberty 
while it develops its mailed fist of social might to crush liberty — 
this devil who cries for bread and feeds out poison — this devil 
who denies God and strides toward the temporal throne — 
this devil who talks of love and breathes the foul, taint of lust 
— this devil who stretches out his arm to grasp the mighty 
sword of political power in a free land. It shall not be given 



Political Atheism. 151 

him! Though it may seem that Sodom and Gomorrah are 
preparing anew the way to destruction ! First and most easily 
the rich are corrupting the State for private gain, for pride, 
for power. Next, the poor are belied into the confidence of 
ignorance over knowledge ; of vice over virtue ; of sophistry over 
philosophy — in short, that the Ruler of the Universe has aban- 
doned His seat of wisdom, of love and of justice and that the 
working class may set up a new order — with Babel in com- 
mand. 

There need be no wild alarm, but there is need that the 
grave issue which confronts this nation be probed to its centre 
and that the service of righteousness be called in to aid in 
making the adjustments necessary to the growing demands of 
industrial democracy. 

To this end we submit the data herein contained that false 
lights may not lure honest men to false faiths. That political 
atheism shall not command the allegiance of patriotic men. 
Rather obedient to the command of our Lord and our God, 
we shall render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. 



Free Love. 

"Bless ever bless, thy servants, Lord, 
Whom thou dost join in sweet accord, 
The Bridegroom and the Bride; 
In sorrow, sickness, and in health, 
In tribulation and in wealth, 
Be Thou their Help and Guide." 

PERFECT pleasure without alloy is the ideal which passionate 
love sets up for itself. But that very old Hindoo legend 
describes the experience common not alone to men in general, 
but to women, that it is both hard to get on with and without 
the one loved. When Twashtri had created man he gathered 
together a million contradictory elements and out of them 
he made a woman whom he presented to the man. After eight 
davs the man desired to be alone. 

"My Lord," he said, " the creature you gave to me poisons 
my very existence. She babbles unceasingly; she takes all 
my time; she grumbles at everything and at nothing; and 
she is always ill." 

So Twashtri took the woman away. But at the end ot 
another eight days the man became again uneasy, this time 
for the want of the woman. 

"My Lord," he said, "my life is very solitary since I re- 
turned to you this creature." 

So Twashtri gave him the woman back again. This time, 
however, only three days had gone by when the man came 
once more to the god. 

"My Lord," he said, "I do not know how it is but some- 
how the woman gives me more annoyance than pleasure. I 
beg of you to take her away." 

But Twashtri would not. "Go and do your best," was 
his command. 

"I cannot live with her," cried the man. 

"Neither can you live without her," replied the god. 

"Woe is me!" mourned the man. "I can neither live 
With nor without her." 



Free Love. 153 

Yet we must live, and live in this valley of tears. So 
whether one have the light with which to realize the blessings 
of God's law or not, it is still a demonstrable fact — demon- 
strable to those who have the power to penetrate into the Great 
Sea of Light, that God has designed man to lead a life of purity 
if he would win happiness. If man so wills he may so shape 
his destiny as to live harmoniously with his helpmeet here on 
earth, and with his Heavenly Father have the joys of life forever. 

God's law clearly requires of man that he shall so take 
control of this passion as to be its sovereign master, not its slave. 
So whether one wish it or not man must obey God's commands, 
or into a sink of iniquity he must fall ! 

What doth it avail if one get bread and butter with which 
to fill his belly, if he maintains moral standards that consign 
him to the pig pens of life? 

What happiness for man, even in this short material ex- 
istence, if the institution of the family be destroyed and the 
land filled with men and women broken in virtue and in health 
—crazed with the passions of sex ? 

The standards of morality were set centuries gone past. 
We shall either obey them or suffer the tortures of the damned. 

"Adam said: This now is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; 
she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 

"Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to 
his wife : and they shall be two in one flesh. 

"But to them that are married, not I but the Lord commandeth, 
that the wife depart not from her husband. 

"And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her 
husband. And let not the husband put away his wife. 

"The Pharisees tempting him (Jesus) said: Is it lawful for a man to 
put away his wife for every cause ? 

"Who answering, said to them : Have ye not read, that he who made 
man from the beginning, made them male and female f And he said : 

''For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave 
to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 

"Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore 
God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. 

"They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of 
divorce, and to put away? 

"He saith to them : Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your 
heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it 
was not. go, 



154 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except 
it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and 
he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery." 

Here we have the simple yet most vital and holy ideal 
of the relationship of husband and wife. It is God's law that 
monogamy shall be maintained. One man one wife — one and 
inseparable. 

Socialists, as we have without a shadow of doubt proven, 
deny the existence of God. Socialists, as we have with- 
out question proven, deny revelation. Socialism stands for 
the political power to the end of abolishing religion. And 
what is connoted thereby? Why, that all institutions that in 
turn are supported by the influence and teachings of religion 
must fall. As marriage is a sacrament, as the family lies at 
the root of civil society, it shall go by the board together with 
private property upon the introduction of the collective owner- 
ship of capital, which please God shall never take place in 
this country. This being so, who shall truthfully say that 
socialists are not opposed to the family? That they are not 
free-lovers? Doctrinally their leaders never pretend to deny 
it : tactically double dealing is the very breath of the Beast. 

One is not bold to say that the present elevation of the 
family life is wholly due to the sacred environment in which 
it has been sustained. Many are the crimes and sins com- 
mitted within and without the bonds of matrimony. But 
is that the fault of the God-given standards? Or the disci- 
pline of religious institutions which have struggled "to main- 
tain them? No! It is the fault (and suffer they do for their 
own folly) of those who have departed from the standards of 
religion — of those who have not lived in accord with the ideals 
which they know to be good in the sight of God. 

The work of religion has not yet been accomplished — for 
it has work to do until the end of time. Yet the periodical 
attacks of atheism it has withstood has been a stumbling block 
to its work of upbuilding the race. Religion has survived 
materialistic attacks in the past— and fear not — this latest 
political attack, which seeks to break the bonds of matri- 
mony will be repulsed, and the devil will have to take a 
new tack. 



Free Love. 155 

In opening our case [which is to prove that socialism would 
destroy the sacred institution of the family] let us present 
the evidence of Professor Herron, who is an able exponent 
of the philosophy of socialism; and who has somewhat ex- 
perienced the practice of it — with the full approval of the so- 
cialist party. He says : 

"Without regard to our liking, socialism is coming; it is manifestly 
the near stage of historic development. The socialistic road is the opening 
highway which humanity will next travel, whether we want to or not ; and 
if we have anything to say to the world, or anything to give which we 
think it ought to have, we shall have to go along and stay with the people 
to the end of the journey. If it is free land we are after, or a free religion, 
or a free family, or a wholly free society, we shall only find it at the other 
side of socialism, or along the socialistic way." (George D. Herron in 
"The Coming Nation," March 28, 1903.) 

Although Dr. Herron has kept his tandem family abroad 
since this was written, his words are none the less potent now 
in 191 1. For the simple reason that his pronouncements are 
in exact accord with the fathers of modern socialism. Frederick 
Engels declared that : 

"Three great obstacles block the path of social reform — private 
property, religion and the present form of marriage." 

Consequently socialists stand for the abolition of private 
property; for the abolition of religion; and the abolition of 
the family. 

Of course, every thinking man knows that as Marx says, 
a revolution is first brought about upon the field of ideas. So 
it was that Oscar Wilde, who became infamous, after becoming 
famous, by putting his creed into practice, was a practical 
factor in debauching the public mind. We quote: 

"As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot 
possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, 
and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. 

"Socialism annihilates family life. . . . With the abolition of 
private property, marriage in its present form must disappear. This is 
part of the program. . . It converts the abolition of legal re- 
straint into a form of freedom that will help the full development of 
personality, and make the love of man and woman more wonderful, more 
beautiful, and more ennobling." ("The Soul of Man Under Socialism." 
The Challenge, "Millionaire Socialist". Wilshire's Magazine, June, 1002.) 



156 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

----- 
In commendation of Wilde's work — of his scorn of the 

virtue of the poor— WilsMre's Magazine of April, 1905, has 
this to say" 

"I doubt if it is generally known that some of the best work that has 
ever been done in English in advocacy of socialism is due to the pen of 
Oscar Wilde. His 'Soul of Man Under Socialism' is the most directly 
socialistic of Wilde's essays. 

"And Wilde knew his economics of socialism all right. He was not 
a mere literary sentimentalist." 

The revolution of ideas now going on has already con- 
quered more than half the ground in defense of the family, 
in the opinion of Mr. H. M. Hyndman ('The Historical Basis of 
Socialism," p. 452): 

"Thus breaking down and building up go on slowly together, and new 

forms arise to displace the old . It is the same with the family. That, in 

the German-Christian sense of marriage for life and responsibility of the 

parents for the children born in wedlock, is almost at an end even now, 

and must result in a widely extended Communism." 

In common with all "class-conscious" gentlemen of the 
quill, Mr. Hyndman aids in creating the proposed "free family" 
—the no family — by his insistence that the idea of parental 
responsibility is now dying out — almost dead. 

Half the vile battle were won once the idea of communal 
responsibility takes the place of parental authority; and the 
other half were won once the notion is implanted in the popu- 
lar mind that: "The reproduction of the race is a social 
function," as the author of "Woman and Marriage" would 
make it appear. For those who have not, long since, realized 
that an atheist minority has fastened its control upon our 
public school system; and that socialist measures are march- 
ing into the curriculum with a stride of the fabled seven- 
leagued boots, the reading of the Hon. Bird Coler's pamphlet 
(191 1) may well set him right upon the matter. Indeed the 
revolution in the realm of ideas has already gone so far 
that the "cuckoo parent" is to be found in no small numbers. 
So it is but a question of time — of might, for revolutionists 
work while they wait — when the" scientific breeding " of the 
race shall have been added to the atheistical education of 



Free Love. - 157 

children. For parents have no rights which a socialist majority 
is bound to respect 

If one shall think the affirmation too drastic, that socialism 
aims at the destruction of the family, the founders and pro- 
moters of the movement shall speak for themselves and so 
correct so weak an opinion. That the "great document" — 
the "Communist Manifesto"— -may be given its due weight by 
the verdict of its greatest defenders we shall here present an 
opinion of it by the late Wilhelm Liebknecht, who as mem- 
ber of the German Reichstag, until the time of his death, was 
the recognized leader of the Socialist Party of Germany. We 
quote : 

"The 'Manifesto' is the work of Marx and Engels. What was supplied 
by the one, what by the other? An idle question! It is of one mould, and 
Marxand Engels are one soul — as inseparable in the 'Communist Manifesto' 
as they remained in their death in all their working and planning, and as 
they will be to humanity in their works and creations while human beings 
are living on earth. 

"And the credit to have originated this 'Manifesto,' to have provided 
through it a guide of thought and action, the fundamental principles of 
doctrine and tactics, for the proletariat — this credit is so colossal that 
even by dividing it in halves both of them still receive a giant's share. 

"If Marx and Engles had never created anything else, if they had been 
devoured by the revolution, on the eve of which they thundred forth into 
the world with prophetic vision the 'Manifesto' — they had gained immor- 
tality." ("Biographical Memoirs of Karl Marx." Chicago 1901.) 

Now "The Communist Manifesto" may speak for itself on 
the subject in question. We quote: 

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this 
infamous proposal of the Communists. 

"On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, 
based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form 
this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things 
finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the 
proletarians and in public prostitution. 

"The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course, when its 
complement (prostitution) vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanish- 
ing of capital. 

"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, 
and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. 

"Nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our 
bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be 



158 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists 
have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost 
from time immemorial. 

"Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common, and 
thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached 
with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically 
concealed, an openly legalized community of women. For the rest it is 
self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must 
bring with it the abolition of the community* of women springing from 
that system, i. c, of prostitution both public and private." 

Yes, Liebknecht is dead, but London Justice is not. More- 
over no voice is so potent in the English tongue as this weekly 
published in England. We quote from a very late issue, April 
8-1 91 1 : 

"No pamphlet of modern times has had such an influence on the 
intellectual progress of the world as this, and no socialist laying claim to a 
scientific knowledge of socialism can afford to be without it." 

The '"Communist Manifesto" is certainly a past master in 
the art of shifting the ground for orientation; of muddying 
the intellectual waters; of playing a game of legerdemain with 
reason — for now you see it and now you don't. 

But careful reading of this quotation will show it to be 
a somewhat veiled but ferocious attack upon the sacred in- 
stitution of the family. Were this subject matter to come 
forth dressed in honest garb, the spots of the leper would be 
clearly seen. It attacks by innuendo the natural order of 
human life — the Divine ideal of the family, while it openly 
declares that the family is founded on property. Once its 
property origin is set down for scientific "keeps," the lines 
are laid for hypocritically assuming that while the classes no 
longer have any sentimentality about the origin of marriage, 
that it is after all just this very sentimentality which prevents 
the masses from the realization that marriage is but the mere 
creature of economic evolution. From this it proceeds with 
its double and twisted wisdom to the conclusion of an insult 
that is wholesale. The revolution of ideas is so far advanced 
that it has taken not theoretical but practical possession of 
the proletariat, for marriage is practically absent among the 
working class. 



Free Love. 159 

Next we have a desperate sample of the underhanded 
method of innoculating men with the "socialist mind." Words 
which carry the quality of disintegration with them — words 
of immoral import to the emotions of the reader, veiled in ana- 
lytical phrases, rather than a clear intellectual statement which 
says what is meant. So it is that right-reason is rocked from 
its too insecure moorings in the untrained mind, and that sav- 
ing grace, common sense, is altogether confused by the pre- 
tense of scientific insight. That the well-to-do have torn away 
from the family the sentiment that once surrounded it and that 
the family relation as a mere money relation should be a re- 
proach, is a strange statement from those who insist that the 
foundation of the family is private property. Why should 
it not be a mere money relation ? The mystery is how the family 
ever procured its sentimental veil to tear away. 

"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its senti- 
mental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere 
money relation." 

What may this mean? except that the sentiment of family 
purity once sustained by religious faith is once for all, by "eco- 
nomic determinism," torn asunder. That under capitalism 
the buying and selling of sex sentiment goes on apace ? After 
insisting that community of wives is the mode of to-day — 
although there is a pretended "virtuous indignation" at the 
purpose of socialists to establish a system of wives in common, 
then the real cat comes cautiously out of the bag, "in this 
greatest document on earth." "For the rest it is self-evident 
that the abolition of the present system of production must 
bring with it the abolition of the community of women spring- 
ing from that system, i. e. t of prostitution both public and pri- 
vate." That is to say, the selling of one's body is prostitu- 
tion, likewise marriage is prostitution. What then? Why, 
verily — under socialism, neither pretense nor family ties what- 
soever. 

Of course all this could be said simply in a plain, unvar- 
nished tale, but that were not the method by which to make 
socialist converts. So confusion is raised to pay its regards 
to decency. Yet now that half a century is passed since Marx 
and Engels wrote the Manifesto, even confusion is sometimes 



i6o Socialism: the Nation ©f Fatherless Children. 

abandoned and a vile frankness sets out an argument in favor 
of the utter abandonment of family life in the interest of Co- 
operative Homes. Writing for the Times Magazine (New York, 
Dec., 1906), Upton Sinclair says: 

"The servant is an amateur; she is a person of too low a grade to be 
made into a professional of any sort, according to our exacting modern 
standards. She belongs to the outcast class, for which science and civiliza- 
tion do not exist. She is generally a servant because she is not clever 
enough to be a factory girl, nor attractive enough to be a prostitute." 

To further discredit the work necessary to home keeping 
in favor of the "economic independence" of women, the F.ev. 
Roland D. Sawyer (New York Call, July 10, 19 10), echoed 
the Sinclair insult to servant girls and adds more of his own, 
in favor of the socialist program for breaking up the home. 
We quote from "The Economic Basis of the Divorce Problem:" 

"Housekeeping is the lowest work on the list, and Upton Sinclair 
has well described the girls engaging in it as those not clever enough for 
the factory or not attractive enough to become prostitutes. 

"Once woman was economically dependent on man: she had to 
marry and remain married in order to live. Our grandmothers were 
forced by economic conditions to do domestic drudgery, bear and bury 
children. But the woman of to-day is not economically dependent on 
man, she is not driven by fear of destitution into the life she once was, 
she is not compelled to become married, or to submit to hardship and stay 
married — and I, for one, thank God she is not." 

Shades of our grandmothers! That the fore-knowledge 
of the vicious propaganda of their degenerate grandsons they 
had not, we are devoutly thankful. With God dethroned 
to make place for economic determinism it must be supposed 
that from force of habit the Reverend gentleman uses the word 
merely as an ejaculation ! 

However, Evolution — something that must move -without 
being anything itself — may be said to have changed the traglo- 
dyte into the man, there is no change in the aim of the devil 
to break down the chastity of the home. Without being ex- 
actly aware of it themselves, socialist advocates greatly aid 
and must greatly please his satanic majesty at this task. 

Wilhelm Liebknecht in "Socialism: What it is and what it 
seeks to accomplish," (Chicago, 1901), shall show that abroad, 



Free Lova. i6r 

as- at home, socialist writers first create perverse history and 
follow its baleful influence up with perverse sentiment, all to 
one end — socialism triumphant. We quote: 

"Thanks to the wrong conditions of society and the state, woman is 
to-day without rights and in countless cases is condemned to wedded or 
unwedded prostitution. The intercourse of the sexes is unnatural and 
immoral — socialism will bring the emancipation of woman as well as of 
man. It insists on her complete political and social equality and equal 
position with man. It will destroy prostitution, whether it walk un- 
ashamed under the mantle of marriage for wealth or convenience, or 
whether it runs shameless, painted and naked upon the street." 

But what about that "mantle of marriage" which covers 
the chaste relationship of father, mother and child? — will so- 
cialists kindly meet the issue frankly and answer? 

We resent past speech, the imputation that low wages 
and hard conditions compel working girls to sell their bodies 
to be burned by lust. The saving truth is that inclination to 
feed the flesh and to serve the devil makes of poor women and 
of rich women alike the loathsome opposite of the wives, mothers 
and sisters whom men and children love and to whom the world 
pays honor. 

It is the fashion in socialist speeches and frequently met 
with in socialist literature to assume that bread and butter 
and good clothes are to many, to hosts of women, more 
coveted than that priceless treasure of the woman's heart, 
chastity. 

We are free to say that such vicious sentiment becoming 
generally accepted, would be a most potent factor in inducing 
women to break from the paths of virtue under the pressure 
of hard economic conditions. 

Persons holding sentiments of "easy virtue" either ig- 
nore or are incapable of reaching the conviction which lies at 
the very center of the design of perfect motherhood, that chastity 
is far more to be prized than gold or lands or rank or even life 
itself. For what is the life of a woman to herself if stripped 
of the citadel of her self-sanctity ? Therefore do you say that 
she cannot live without vice — then many a woman under 
stress answers you back again, so be it, dust and ashes is by 
far the more preferable ! 



i62 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

Do you say that a woman who is pushed beyond the brink 
of virtue is as good as any man's mother who is virtuous having 
been protected in the struggle for life? Then out upon such 
slippery reasoning! For we ask about that other man's mother 
who for long and stormy days, weeks, months and years brought 
girls and boys to sweet and sound womanhood and manhood 
upon a wretched pittance ? Can a man with such a mother (and 
alas, there are so many) consent to such slimy sophistry 
no matter how vociferously it clamors for a hearing. Certainly 
not! He knows in his innermost heart that the thought, aye 
the merest motion towards the corrupt suggestion, is abhorrent. 

No, women are not chaste because they are poor and de- 
fenseless nor because they are rich and protected. Women 
are virtuous because they cherish beyond all else the inherent 
claims of pure womanhood, of pure wifehood, and of pure 
motherhood upon them. Because there is no happiness out- 
side of sex purity. 

Shall the socialist movement become a corrupter of women ? 
I trust not! But it is true that intellectual arguments may 
for a time confuse her inner sense of purity — may for a 
little drown her sensibilities to vice, may condone her sex sin 
by the argument of her frightful poverty. Although direst- 
poverty as a constant condition is as a pleasant May morn- 
ing to the torments of the damned, yet compared to the awful en- 
slavement caused by sex degradation, this latter falls below all 
else. To this conscious mental state men are not admitted, for it 
is to the women of the race that chastity is given for safe keep- 
ing. Woman's day of self -reckoning is ever at hand. The 
bewitching Du Barry was at no time in her career of vice so 
struck home to the quick as by her own overwhelming self- 
accusation — "I am a courtezan." 

A great responsibility is upon us! Let us not aid in de- 
stroying that peace of heart native to all women, by assert- 
ing that the misery of poverty is greater than the tragedy of 
vice. But rather let us appeal to that love of virtue which 
sits deep in every woman's heart, even though her hunger for 
food or her wanton flesh may make strong argument to her 
in favor of a sex servility which is as black as hell. Do not 
let vis add to her temptations by setting up false standards 



Free Love. 163 

which declare that virtue and vice alike are conditional upon 
outward material conditions and interests. Virtue and vice 
are promoted by man's own will. He alone may say I will 
or I will not perform this act or that act and thus add strength 
to his virtue or add strength to his vice. He may by his own 
volition go up into the purer air of his new and more beautiful 
earthly estate or go down into the ruins of corrupted temples. 
Both the nation and the men have their own in their own 
keeping. 

That the nation may renew its life upon the foundations 
of sounder economic knowledge and refresh its spirit with 
purer ideals, is the work good citizens have in hand. Let us 
not then play the opposite, the damnable opposite part by 
surrounding the working women of our time with intellectual 
snares. To break in upon womanly virtue, to undermine 
its foundation with specious arguments and mawkish pity, 
to despoil her physical body and her mental vision. Shall 
we not rather set before the hard pressed working girls 
of our day examples of womanly courage such as is ex- 
hibited by Scott's Rebecca? who held at bay her seducer by 
the determined purpose of dashing herself upon the rocks far 
below, beneath the window of the tower — that so she might 
keep her freedom — the freedom of her chastity, knowing it to 
be the blessed opposite of the enslavement purchased by vice. 

To bring this matter to close range, let us put it to you 
in this brutally frank way: One may hear upon Boston Com- 
mon or in. our brave Cradle of Liberty, Faneuil Hall, social- 
ist speakers dilate upon the low wages (which, it is true, are 
insufficient to live upon save eked out by the almost incredible 
genius of thrift) straightway declare it to be impossible for a 
woman to live upon so low a sum and by direct imputation 
cover every girl in our great department stores with the shame 
of prostitution. There runs through the audience a visible 
effect! High or higher mounts the sympathy for the women 
who stagger and fall under industrial oppression — low and 
lower are the sensations thrown off by the crowd when the 
flesh is stirred with thoughts of immoral conquest. 

The false standards that are thus set up bear heavily 
down upon these women from two opposite directions. On 



164 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

the one hand if it be the accepted philosophy that economic 
hardships are sufficient reason for vicious living then surely 
these girls are not to be held responsible to standards of virtue. 
Therefore the intellectual arguments are such as to weaken 
self-effort to live a life of chastity in the teeth of fierce eco- 
nomic temptation. While on the other hand, if it be accepted 
as correct doctrine that economic pressure is over much for 
virtue to withstand, what is to prevent men who come under 
such teaching from assuming the attitude that lust is not so 
bad a thing after all and consequently these women are, all 
said and done, their legitimate prey? 

Let us ask, is not the acknowledged fact of houses of dis- 
order shame enough to openly put upon modern women? Shall 
we seek to fasten evil suspicion upon whole classes of our hard- 
working women and thus lay heavier burdens across their 
shoulders and shame upon mankind? 

Let socialists alone use such monstrous instruments in 
propagating a doctrine for the destruction of the family, under 
the guise of advancing the economic interests of the race. But 
that we should follow their base standard is too much to be- 
lieve when once its foul face is seen. 

We know too well the estimate which women put upon 
their supreme claim to love and to honor, to accept such con- 
clusions or such methods. We protest with all our soul against 
such treatment of defenseless women ! 

We do not mean to leave this chapter without more than 
sufficient testimony to satisfy the candid mind that free love 
must perforce be regarded as an integral part of socialist doc- 
trine and as a popular phase of its propaganda, more or less 
openly treated. 

Edward Carpenter, a socialist of renown, whose works 
are circulated by anarchists, too; the founder of London Jus- 
tice, in his book ("Loves Coming-of-Age," 1903, Chicago), ad- 
vocates a "free society" in which "free love" will be the rule 
without "the artificial thunder of the church and the state." 

In writing of this book Leonard D. Abbott, a leading 
socialist of New York, in The Comrade, says, " During recent 
years Carpenter had devoted a great deal of attention to sexual 
problems, and his book, 'Love's Coming-of-Age,' is as sugges- 



Frik Loyi. 165 

tive and notable a treatment of this subject, from the social- 
ist point of view, as has yet appeared in the English language." 
— Yes, it is indeed suggestive, despite its roseate hue, of the 
period of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the days before God com- 
manded these vile spots to be wiped from off the face of the 
earth. 

The distinguished men writers are not alone upon this 
field, for the talented women of the party are quite as ready 
to endorse "Love's Coming-of- Age," with its suggestive treatment 
of the family, and to predict a radical change in its form. Re- 
viewing this book for The Socialist Spirit (Chicago, Nov., 1902), 
Marion Craig Wentworth says : 

"This is a comprehensive and philosophical treatise on sexual science 
and marriage. Like all of Edward Carpenter's productions, it is written 
from high ground. There is no doubt that as soon as woman is free poli- 
tically and economically the marriage relation will undergo a radical 
change. For a comprehension of the possible lines upon which such 
changes may be worked out one may well turn to this little book of Mr. 
Carpenter's. It is a real contribution, and the emancipated should not 
fail to have it upon their book shelves." 

It should be understood that the "emancipated" are the 
free lovers. Once during our futile attempts to root free love 
out of the party we were somewhat staggered when Mrs. Went- 
worth came to the rescue of Mr. Wentworth in his stout de- 
fence of free marriage. Indeed, as the gentleman said, his 
"comrade" was truly his better half in the argument against us. 
But Mr. Carpenter will speak plainly for himself: 

"Here there is no solution except the freedom of woman — which 
means of course also the freedom of the masses of the people, men and 
women, and the ceasing altogether of economic slavery. There is no 
solution which will not include the redemption of the terms 'free woman,' 
and 'free love' to their true and rightful significance. Let every woman 
whose heart bleeds for the sufferings of her sex, hasten to declare herself 
and to constitute herself, as far as she possibly can, a free woman. Let 
her accept the term with all the odium that belongs to it j let her insist on 
her right to speak, dress, think, act, and above all to use her sex, as she 
deems best ; let her face the scorn and the ridicule ; let her 'lose her own 
life' if she likes ; assured that only so can come deliverance, and that only 
when the free woman is honored will the prostitute cease to exist." 
("Love's Coming-of-Age,'! Chicago, 111., 1903, page 62.) 



1 66 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

That sex immorality has caused many to suffer the tor- 
tures of hell, here and now, is known to the sorrow of sinful 
men and women, whose faces betray more than one's heart 
can bear to witness. That the cause of unhappiness is eco- 
nomic; and that the remedy is to be had by breaking the re- 
ligious, the civic and the conventional sex standards is the 
common opinion of the authorities on socialism. They have 
nothing to offer but this — to break the bonds that hold sex 
emotions from falling to the low tone of lust. More cause for 
unhappiness is the socialist cure for unhappiness. Having 
started from an utterly false premise, unless they shall come 
back to the belief in God, what but utter inconsistency with 
their doctrine shall prevent socialists from going deeper into 
falsehood and degradation at every step of advance? Truly 
nothing, their case is hopeless unless the cure is radical. 

As without a belief in God there is nothing left upon which 
to erect a standard which would sustain sex purity — for if there 
is no God there is no moral responsibility — no inner conscious- 
ness by which one measures his own conduct by the Divine 
rule. Without God, ideals are left entirely at the mercy of 
human emotion — of ''sex fondness." Lacking the purifying 
environment of religion, what is there left to the heart's desire 
but to satisfy the animal passions. Take away the recognition 
of God from the human mind and mankind is left without the 
contrast of light and darkness — without the distance between 
heaven and hell. If there be no God the socialist denial of free 
will is logical, and human passion may control the human mind. 
But women, make no mistake ! This abomination of desolation 
is what socialists offer you as a means of solving the sex ques- 
tion. Do you believe in socialism? Then you are a "free" 
woman, "insist on your right (without the fear of God) to 
use your sex as you deem best." 

Being a socialist classic, "Love's Coming-of-Age" is reviewed 
every little while, to make sure that the book shall be found upon 
the shelves of the multiplying number of the "emancipated." 
We quote from The International Socialist Review (May, 1906), 
also from The Socialist Review (New Jersey, Nov. 17, 1906): 

"This work is without doubt the most satisfactory work that has 
thus far appeared on the relations of the sexes under the coming social 
order, and on rational sex ethics during the period of transition. 



Free Love. 167 

"Edward Carpenter has the rare merit of being a poet and man of 
science in one. He has analyzed the sex-passion in a fashion which is 
indeed frank, but as clean as it is frank. He has analyzed the historic 
and economic causes that have produced the opposite characteristics of 
men and women, and has done it in a way that will help thinking men 
to understand women better, and thinking women to understand men 
better. Finally he has reviewed the past history of marriage, as produced 
by the conditions of primitive communism, slavery, feudalism and capital- 
ism, and then gives a rational forecast of what the relations of the sexes 
will inevitably be under the equal freedom of the future. And his con- 
clusion is that the tendency will not be from but toward a life-long attach- 
ment between one woman and one man who love each other." 

One may wonder whether as poet or scientist Mr. Car- 
penter decides that not God but rather some preponderance of 
something nobody knows what — perhaps, of nothing, as no- 
body hints at the something, at some time nobody guesses 
when, caused the opposite characteristics of men and women. 
It is so simple to recognize the fact that men and women 
are different yet complementary one to the other And so 
rational, from the fact that there is no scrap of evidence to 
the contrary, and from the further fact that all the evidence 
there is goes to show that mankind has always been divided 
into male and female, to believe that man and woman created 
He them. Catholic doctrine is so thoroughly in accord with 
what science knows on the subject — not of course with what 
humanists guess, or atheists want to believe — that there is 
not the least shadow of opposition between science and re- 
ligion on this point, or on any other, for that matter. Yet 
one may be excused for the mild surprise that neither as a man 
of science nor as poet, Mr. Carpenter did not think it worth 
while to understand what religion has to say with regard to 
marriage being a sacrament. But as a man of science, surely 
Mr. Carpenter cannot be excused from learning what logic 
has to say about that one basic form of the family that is at 
once the simplest and the purest with which the race can pos- 
sibly be carried forward. Nor as scientist, can Mr. Carpenter 
be excused from the recognition that one husband and one 
wife with their chilrden as the purest — the unmixed — form 
of the family puts science and religion in perfect harmony as 
to the monogamic family being the natural foundation of hu- 
man society. Consequently against the sacramental marriage 



168 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

of the Christian family science can have no word to say. Hence 
also what Mr. Carpenter as scientist should see is not a "ten- 
dency" towards the life union of one man and one woman, 
but the established fact — fixed beyond peradventure of all 
"tendencies" — the fact being the standard. 

Though Mr. Carpenter's conclusion as regards this "ten- 
dency" of his is at least smilable, as the socialist tendency 
must then be going in two opposite directions at one and the 
same time. After all we will forbear, as we recall that it is 
perhaps as poet that Mr. Carpenter faces in the right direc- 
tion, while as scientist he faces towards the direct opposite point. 
Indeed this is the stunt that even those socialists who are not 
so fortunate as to be poet and scientist in one must perform, 
for if it does happen that they take a rational attitude towards 
the tendency of phenomena that direction is necessarily hos- 
tile to the fundamental tenets of their creed. 

Let us hope that Mr. Carpenter and even some of his re- 
viewers, though hardly the emancipated, shall learn that the 
Catholic Church because she is Divine — because she knows — 
has not once changed her dogma that marriage is a sacrament, 
nor once changed her discipline to accommodate anybody 
with a "free family," though she has lost whole kingdoms 
because their monarchs wanted to be emancipated. 

Being free moral agents every woman should know that 
even though she have the power, she has not the right to use 
her sex against the natural and the supernatural standards 
of purity. 

Endowed with the principle of purity which the voice 
of conscience in every woman's breast would guard; educated 
by the teachings of science and religion, every woman's un- 
derstanding shall tell her that the "freedom" which socialism 
seeks to foist upon her shall be at the cost of that most price- 
less treasure of her mind and heart — her honor. 

Female honor is a fixed principle, just the opposite of 
female shame, But as socialism has none such, what is that 
standard which shall guide the "class-conscious" but the shift- 
ing flame of sex emotion. 

Do you feel sex passion arise within you? Is that woman 
attached to you by "sex fondness?" "That is your private 



Free Love. 169 

business. " The state, the church and " the big policeman above " 
have no moral right to interfere. Herd together until a new- 
sex attraction sets your passions aflame. 

From the immortal bard, not poets alone, should learn 
to contrast the conduct of virtue with that of lust— all to the 
honor of the sexes. 

"Prospero: 

If thou dost break her virgin knot before 
All sanctimonious ceremonies may 
With full and holy rite be minister' d 
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall 
To make this contract grow: but barren hate, 
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew 
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly 
That you shall hate it both : therefore take heed, 
As Hymen's lamps shall light you. 

Ferdinand : A T , 

As I hope 

For quite days, fair issue, and long life, 

With such love as 't is now, the murkiest den, 

The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion 

Our worser genius can, shall never melt 

Mine honour into lust ; to take away 

The edge of that day's celebration, 

When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd, 

Or night kept chain' d below,' ' 

We are not alone in the understanding of the sex doc- 
trine which is put forth by socialism. Its drastic condemna- 
tion by the Rev. Fr. Thomas J. Sherman — courageous son of 
an illustrious father — as reported in the Chicago Record-Herald 
is not overdrawn : 

"Socialism in its view of matrimony , reduces the state to the level of a 
breeding farm. Socialism asks us to vote for the dishonor of our mothers, 
for the shame of every drop of blood in our bodies. Are we men to permit 
such a party to rear its political standard in our midst? WHERE IS 
AMERICAN MANHOOD AND COURAGE, that they do not RISE and 
DRIVE the advocates of SUCH principles out of the political field?" 

And although Father Sherman's expression that this is 
"hells lowest vomit" is itself disgusting, the phrase without ex- 
aggeration fits the case. For not only does " socialism ask 



170 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

us to vote for the dishonor of our mothers," but it asks us to 
set up rules for conduct (if the police are not in sight) which 
would break down the knowledge of morality. This slime is 
what we are asked to vote for. 

No ! this calling a spade a spade is not in violation of good 
taste. We have here to do with mortal issues, and elegance of 
expression cannot be permitted to limit that virility necessary 
to the condemnation of the damnable sex influence which so- 
cialism exerts, not alone upon this, that and another indi- 
vidual, but also upon the public sentiment, opinion, legisla- 
tion of the whole civilized world. 

The ''free family" is not alone taught as a dogma of sci- 
ence and an industrial measure, by the insistence that not 
the family but the individual is the economic unit of organ- 
ized society, but also through the medium of fiction it is in- 
stilled into the emotions of a large part of the community for 
which sociological discussion has no interest. So, a much 
deeper gash is cut in the heart of marital integrity. 

William Morris, poet, artist and socialist, gives in "News 
From Nowhere," a pictorial presentation of the love relationship 
under the "free" conditions to come in with the socialist so- 
ciety. We quote from this much-prized picture of the great 
socialist poet : 

Said I : "That beautiful girl, is he going to be married to her?" 

"Well,' ' said he, "yes, he is. He has been married to her once already 
and now I should say it is pretty clear that he will be married to her again. ' ' 

"Indeed," quoth I, wondering what that meant. 

"Here is the whole tale . . . they lived together two years the 
first time ; were both very young; and then she got it into her head that 
she was in love with somebody else. So she left poor Bick; I say poor 
Dick, because he had not found any one else. But it did not last long. 
. . . Then she came to me and asked me how Dick was. . . .So 
I saw how the land lay, and said that he was very unhappy, and not at 
all well; which last at any rate was a lie. There, you can guess the 
rest. 

' ' Dear me , ' ' said I . " Ha ve they any children ? ' ' 

"Yes," said he, "two; they are staying with one of my daughters 
at present where, indeed, Clara has mostly been. I wouldn't lose sight 
of her, as I felt sure they would come together again ; and Dick, who is the 
best of good fellows, really took the matter to heart. You see, he had no 
other love to run to, as she had. So I imagined it all ; as I have done with 
such-like matters before." 



Free Love. 171 

"Ah," said I, "no doubt you wanted to keep them out of the Divorce 
Court." 

"Then you suppose nonsense," said he. "I know that there used to 
be such lunatic affairs as divorce-courts . we are not so mad 

as to pile up degradation on that unhappiness by engaging in sordid 
squabbles about livelihood and position, and the power of tyrannizing over 
the children who have been the results of love or lust . ' ' 

Kindly look on this picture and then on this ! — then tell 
the American public for which you vote. 

"Queen Katherine: 

Have I liv'd thus long — let me speak myself, 

Since virtue finds no friends — a wife, a true one ? 

A woman — I dare say without vain-glory — 

Never yet branded with suspicion ? 

Have I with all my full affections 

Still met the king? lov'd him next heaven? obey'd hira? 

Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him ? 

Almost forgot my prayers to content him ? 

And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well, lords 

Bring me a constant woman to her husband, 

One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure 

And to that woman, when she has done most, 

Yet will I add an honour, — a great patience. 
Wolsey : 

Madam, you wander from the good we aim at. 
Queen Katherine: 

My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty, 

To give up willingly that noble title 

Your master wed me to ; nothing but death 

Shall e'er divorce my dignities." 

Between the two ideals no compromise is possible, so the 
practical defense of the family must pitch battle against di- 
vorce, for the tandem marriages of to-day drive straight on 
to the free-family where "no such lunatic affairs as divorce 
courts" shall be known, obviously. 

Under the title of " Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome" 
(Chicago edition, 1909), Morris and Bax, the joint authors, treat 
the problem of marriage not in the guise of fiction, but seriously. 
Of this book the International Socialist Review (Feb., 1909), says: 

"This is one of the socialist classics. Charmingly written and easy 
to read, it also contains an immense mass of historical information of the 
utmost value to every student of socialism." 



172 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

From the chapter Socialism Triumphant, p. 225, we quote 
a full paragraph: 

"As to the particulars of life under the socialist order, we may, to 
begin with, say concerning marriage and the family that it would be affected 
by the great change, firstly in economices, and secondly in ethics. The 
present marriage system is based on the general supposition of economic 
dependence of the woman on the man, and the consequent necessity for 
his making provision for her, which she can legally enforce. This basis 
would disappear with the advent of social economic freedom, and no 
binding contract would be necessary between the parties as regards liveli- 
hood ; while property in children would cease to exist, and every infant 
that came into the world would be born into full citizenship, and would 
enjoy all its advantages, whatever the conduct of its parents might be. 
Thus a new development of the family would take place, on the basis, not 
of a predetermined lifelong business arrangement, to be formally and 
nominally held to, irrespective of circumstances, but on mutual inclina- 
tion and affection, an association terminable at the will of either party. 
It is easy to see how great the gain would be to morality and sentiment 
in this change. At present, in this country at least, a legal and quasi 
moral offence has to be committed before the obviously unworkable 
contract can be set aside. On the continent, it is true, even at the 
present day the marriage can be dissolved by mutual consent ; but either 
party can, if so inclined, force the other into subjection, and prevent 
the exercise of his or her freedom. It is perhaps necessary to state that 
this change would not be made merely formally and mechanically. There 
would be no vestige of reprobation, weighing on the dissolution of one tie 
and the forming of another. For the abhorrence of the oppression of the 
man by the woman, or the woman by the man (both of which continually 
happen to-day under the cegis of our would-be moral institutions) will 
certainly be an essential outcome of the ethics of the New Society." 

Surely there were no excuse for the student should he 
mistake the meaning of this socialist classic. Under Social- 
ism Triumphant no ''binding contract" shall be made, neither 
civil nor sacred. Women shall be utterly defenceless and di- 
vorced from their dignities as wife and mother. Men utterly 
homeless and irresponsible, being deprived of their privileges 
as husband and father, they sink to the lot of male animals, 
with neither rights nor duties to perform. And the children! 
God forbid, shall know no father's authority — no father's pro- 
tection; and no mother's love — no mother's teaching. The 
infant citizen shall grow up in the barracks. Truly as cold a 
world for the father, mother and the child as lust hot from 
hell could make it, is this New Society. 



Free Love. 173 

And yet now and again some mentally befuddled workman, 
or some impudent rascal of an editor, denies his doctrine when 
it is cited that socialism is an attack on the home, the family, 
and the church. That the socialists foment riot and disorder, 
that they propose to overthrow law and order, religion and 
morality, that they are laying the foundation for a system of 
confusion, vice, and infidelity. 

The Worker (7-20-1902), with an utter disregard for truth 
in its unholy thirst for converts to the cause of damnation 
warns the: 

"Gentlemen of the 'Catholic Light' it is a dangerous game you are 
playing. Honesty is the best policy. In this age of newspapers and 
public meetings it does not pay to falsify facts too recklessly. The 
miners are learning what socialism is by meeting and listening to socialists 
and reading their writings. If you keep on misrepresenting socialism 
you will succeed only in destroying the miner's confidence in you. We give 
you this warning in all kindness and good faith, for we do not wish to 
quarrel with you." 

Truly, the one institution, above all others, which you 
Knights of the Socialist Mind fear is the Catholic Church. 
You do not wish to quarrel with Catholic gentlemen, surely 
not; you wish to undermine the Catholic Faith in the hearts 
of the uneducated, to bring the great mass of Catholic work- 
men over into your camp under false pretenses, and you know 
that you could never win them in any other way. For Catho- 
lics have standards that hold to right-reason and to common 
sense, and they have light supernatural. Sir Knights of the 
Socialist quill, you cannot confuse the issue with bluff and 
bluster, and you cannot avoid coming face to face at most 
inopportune times with your own vile literature which you never 
intend to withdraw from circulation, for it is an integral part 
of your creed. You know too well the double game you play to 
wish to meet on a free field in a fair fight the issue of family in- 
tegrity. You mean to employ socialist tactics — to be bold 
when it is politically prudent and to be innocent when you 
dare not be bold. You think the public is daft. You say 
that you do not attack the home, when in your published list 
of books on sale, in almost every issue of your papers are to 
be found socialist books advocating the destruction of the 



i74 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

family. In the face of the fact of socialist advocacy of free 
love it is brazen assumption for you to call the Catholic Light 
to task by telling them that " honesty is the best policy. " But 
honesty is not your best policy, for if you were honestly to put 
your doctrine before the American people they would have 
none of it. We say to you it is a dangerous game you are playing, 
and this book will unmask the socialist mind. 

The basis of your sex doctrine — economic determinism — 
keeps one's gaze upon the ground. The low regard in which 
women are held and the degrading conclusions as to the " ideal" 
sex relation, come alike from this false theory. Karl Marx 
says, " The first division of labor is that of man and wife in 
breeding children." Think to what straits one is put in de- 
fence of one's theory when human procreation is classed under 
the science of political economy. Here is another sample 
of a father of the materialist concept of history. " In the family 
the man is the bourgeois, the woman represents the prole- 
tariat." (Frederick Engels.) 

While this from Ernest Belfort Bax is viler still: 

"The husband is compelled, by custom, and by law, to do corvee, or to 
yield up such portion of his earnings as may enable his wife to live in 
comfort — just as the villein was compelled to do corvee, or to pay his lord 
a proportion of the produce of the fields worked by his labour. The lord 
had the practical monoply of the villein's means of existence — the land. 
Under the most favourable circumstances, he exacted from him a toll, 
in the shape of a rent, in kind or money, and other dues, for the privilege 
of working the land. The woman possesses the monopoly of what is, if 
not a primary, at least a secondary necessary of life to the great majority 
of men — the means of sexual satisfaction, her body ; and for allowing him 
access to which the law entitles her to demand a rent and dues in the shape 
of food, clothes, shelter — in short provison in accordance with the station 
in life occupied by her villein, the husband, without any exertion on her 
part . ' ' {Social Democrat. ) 

Thus to defend free-love upon a made-to-order economic 
ground, is strictly in keeping with the atheist dogmas which 
lie at the root of its many sided propaganda. 

With nothing to distinguish the human creation of wealth 
from the Divine creation of man socialism wallows in the in- 
tellectual mire. They cannot see the Divine Law — the posi- 
tive side of the civic law with its basis in equity, which holds 



Free Love. 175 

men to paths of duty and honor. No, they see only the nega- 
tive side — the policeman's club — the force which protects 
woman in the collection of her fee for the rent of her body 
from her " villein, " the husband, as the lord is allowed to col- 
lect the fee for the rent of his land. 

No wonder The Call (4-3-1 9 10), sings an ode to the pros- 
titute when the "science" of socialism has such a story to 
tell. No wander that the Rev. Roland D. Sawyer, socialist 
(New York Call, 7-1 0-19 10), finds comfort in our national 
shame — divorce. For he has an economic, not a moral, basis 
for ill-will and lust : 

"There is no hint in it that we are less religious or less moral than our 
fathers and mothers. We are simply passing through economic changes, 
that is all." 

Of course to be consistent (though it is impossible that 
socialists shall be), Rev. Sawyer would have no use for the 
words religious and moral, save only as terms once having much 
influence though with no real content. For: 

"Beneath throne, altar, and hearth, in their present form, all socialists 
know that there lies the market. They know that the market is the bed- 
rock on which the throne, the altar, and the hearth of the nineteenth 
century rests, and that this bed-rock shattered, the said throne, altar, 
and hearth will be doomed." 

We need make no apology for quoting somewhat fre- 
quently from this distinguished Englishman, for since the 
death of Dietzgen the mantle of "our philosopher" has fallen 
to the lot of Ernest Belfort Bax. We like, too, the open foe; 
even though like the courage of the rat in the corner, his is 
desperation, for the standards of the moral law play no part 
in the findings of this "race-conscious" mind. We quote from 
"Outlooks From a New Standpoint," (pp. 155-60): 

"In the present day there are but two alternatives — the mystical 
sanction of monogamy, and what we may term the vestryman sanction. 
The only rational position for those who take up the strict lines of legalized 
monogamic chastity and sniff disapprovingly at the fact, or the notion, 
of sexual intercourse outside this relation, is the mystical — Christian 
sanction. Such a one must regard marriage and the sex relation generally, 
as a sacred symbol of a solemn, mystical truth, otherwise he is a blatant 
fraud. For though he may 'most powerfully and potently' believe in the 



176 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

economic or vestryman sanction, yet this alone, while it might lead to 
reasoned remonstrance, could not possibly evoke any genuine unction of 
the kind one is accustomed to associate with conventional laudations of 
chastity, and condemnations of its breach, or with finger-pointings at the 
non-respectable woman. For this sanction has a quite peculiar flavour, 
which could in reality only be caused by an outrage on our deepest feelings, 
such as would rend our hearts, and not merely our trousers' pocket. The 
unctious saint, if we are persuaded of his sincerity, one may respect and 
even love, but the unctious vestryman no man can love. Besides, the 
'vestryman' sanction — that is the one consisting of mere economical 
expediency — loses its direct force in at least two cases within the limits 
of our present society. It loses where the question of offspring is elimi- 
nated by 'practical malthusianism,' or other causes. It loses it where 
the offspring are as well provided for as they would be in marriage. It 
loses it, as a matter of course, where the economic basis of society, from 
being individualistic, has become socialistic. The vestryman or trousers- 
pocket sanction of marriage is, therefore, obviously not of a nature to 
give the institution a fundamental ethical basis, and hence, we are 
justified in saying that monogamy as an ethical principle collapses with 
the collapse of theological mysticism. For this reason, the various 
Christian sects are trying to constitute themselves the custodians of mo- 
nogamy and the conventional sexual morality, as the only remunerative 
occupation left them, except philantrophy, after the loss of public in- 
terest in God and Christ. 

"In addition to the Christians there are the Positivists and 
miscellaneous rhetoricians who seek to prop up monogamy by 
phrases. They are, however, a very feeble folk; so far as this question is 
concerned, we have already pointed out the only two solid arguments for 
the monogamic principle and the sexual abstinence it involves. Now, 
these good people can't exactly accept either the 'mystical' or the 'vestry- 
man' position. Hence, they take refuge in deliciously vague declamation 
on the nobility, on the loftiness, of the ideal which handcuffs one man and 
one woman together for life. We are never allowed to see precisely where 
the nobility and the loftiness come in, but we are assured that they are 
there. The mere commonplace man, if left to himself, would probably 
think that it rested entirely upon circumstances, upon character, tem- 
perament, etc., whether the perpetual union of two persons was desirable. 
There are excellent men and women [possibly the majority] born with 
dispositions for whom a single permanent union is doubtless just the right 
thing; there are other excellent men and women who are born with lively 
imaginations and bohemian temperaments for whom it is not always 
precisely the right thing. Now, the plain man of ordinary reflection 
would imagine that all these phases of human nature have their justifica- 
tion and their corresponding*ideals. No, Bays the Positivist, or other 
rhetorical upholder of strict monogamy, there is only one absolute ideal, 
and on the procrustean bed of this ideal all men and women must be 
stretched. 



Free Love. 177 

It is clearly the duty of every individual to protest 
against it openly by word and deed, rather than for the sake of gaining the 
applause of mawkish sentimentalists to sanction it sither tacitly or 
avowedly. 

"Herein we have an instance of the distinction between bourgeois 
morality and socialist morality. To the first it is 'immoral' to live in a 
marital relation without having previously subscribed to certain legal 
formalities. ... To the second ... to live in a state of 
unlegalized marriage defilethnot a man, 'nor woman neither.' There are 
some persons even who need enjoining to deny themselves the pleasure of 
asceticism and the smug self-satisfaction they derive from it. . 

"Enforced monogamy and its correlate, prostitution, is the great 
historical antithesis of civilization in the sexual sphere, just as master- 
ship and service is in the economic sphere, or as God and nature in the 
speculative sphere, or as sin and holiness in the sphere of ethics generally, 
etc. 

"Socialism will strike at the root at once of compulsory monogamy 
and prostitution by inaugurating an era of marriage based on free choice 
and intention, and characterised by the absence of external coercion. 

"In this, as in other departments, the modern man, immersed in the 
categories of the bourgeois world, sees everything through them. For 
him, therefore, there exists only legalized monogamic marriage and 
prostitution, both of which are based essentially on commercial con- 
siderations. The one is purchase, the other hire. He cannot see the 
higher and only really moral form of the marriage-relation which trans- 
cends both, and which is based neither on sale nor hire. Prostitution 
is immoral as implying the taking advantage by the woman of a monopoly 
which costs her no labour for the sake of extorting money from the man. 
But the condition of legal marriage — maintenance — does the same. 

"If it be asked, is marriage a failure? the answer of any impartial 
person must be — monogamic marriage is a failure — the rest is silence. 
We know not what the new form of the family, the society of the future, 
in which men and women will be alike economically free, may evolve, 
and which may be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile, we ought to 
combat by every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of 
the inherent sanctity of the monogamic principle." 

What plainer declaration could be made against the mono- 
gamic family? — And Bax is the leading "philosophic reasoner 
and exponent of socialist theory and doctrine." How, now? 
Shall socialists be given the political power with which to put 
their theories into general practice? 

Shall they be permitted to throw the couleur-de-rose over 
their double dealing? which is so common to the bettter tac- 
ticians than Bax. Shall their statements be credited as sin- 



178 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

cere when denying free-love to be a part of their economic 
system, by the staff in control of socialist propaganda? 

Bax's argument is all so openly heathen, so above du- 
plicity in the support of sex freedom (as whatsoever practice 
may be called save that alone which is given Christian sanc- 
tion), that although the opposing arguments for marriage as 
a sacrament are not worked out (could not be worked out in 
fact by one having actually convinced himself on the side 
taken by this socialist philosopher), it would seem that here it 
were unnecessary to defend that marriage state which God 
ordained and which His Church has through nineteen centuries 
handed down inviolate. For our primary purpose on this 
ground is to give more than sufficient testimony to the effect 
that no man can be a doctrinaire socialist who is not a free- 
lover in theory if not in practice. 

However, one point is altogether too telling to let pass 
without comment. As neither Bax, nor ''our philosopher" be- 
fore him, neither elsewhere in the whole of socialist literature, 
has any one attempted to outline that new form of the family 
which has so wildly captivated the socialist imagination and 
is so commonly and so glibly talked about in radical circles. 
The reason is not far to seek. This new form is no form with 
which to maintain the procreation of the human race. 

No man can in imagination climb above the purity, beauty, 
strength and permanence of the Original Design. So it were, 
indeed, a tribute to the Lord God that degenerate tongues 
are dumb when it comes to telling what were a better form than 
our Heavenly Father has created for us. 

It is, too, clearly in view that Bax acknowledges that the 
only basis for the present form of marriage is to be found in 
religion. Hence the opposition to the church. For outside 
the influence of religion no moral law can be adduced that will 
establish, maintain and perfect the sacred institutions of the 
monogamic — the natural family — the God-given family. 

In "Outlooks From a New Standpoint" Bax clearly applies 
socialist doctrine to the conditions of to-day. We quote : 

"A man may justly reject the dominant sexual morality ; he may 
condemn the monogamic marriage-system which obtains to-day; he 
may claim the right of free union between men and women; he may 



Free Love. 179 

contend he is perfectly at liberty to join himself, either temporarily or 
permanently, with a woman ; and that the mere legal form of marriage 
has no binding force for him . " ( P . 114) 

"Supposing that in Russia or elsewhere, a sudden and urgent demand 
for material resources for party purposes arose, and that much hung upon 
its being immediately satisfied. Suppose again, that, as a last resort, a 
female member of the party were without any hypocritical pretence to sell 
her body to raise the money. Would not this be a commendable act ? 
Given the elimination of the mystical theory of the sexual relation, I 
should say yes. Prostitution for private gain is morally repellant. 
But the same outward act done for a cause transcending individual 
interest loses its character of prostitution and acquires a new content." 
(P. 123.) 

Let us make a close-at-home application of this reason- 
ing. Suppose there were a carpenters' strike on for an eight- 
hour day. Consequently there would be a good opportunity 
to propagate the doctrines of socialism. But the Socialist 
Party were in sore need of funds to carry on their campaign. 
It would be in no wise immoral, provided it were done with- 
out hypocrisy, for any woman in the party to sell her body, 
giving the money to the party for the purpose named. After 
all it is not the selling of one's body that makes one a pros- 
titute, but the purpose for which the money is used. In the 
good cause of socialism it would be a virtue, not a vice. 

Now, we should like an answer from the women of the 
country (it were in vain to appeal to the leading socialist women) 
do you desire to give over the control of this great nation to 
the keeping of a movement advocating such unholy senti- 
ments — such mawkish standards? While to the men we say, 
here is given the ethical standard of a political party which 
dares to ask of respectable American citizens their suffrages. 

For ourselves, we insist that more than the satisfaction 
of "lively imaginations and bohemian temperaments" is 
needed to constitute happy living, even though idle bread and 
butter were served from off golden plates. 

In working up to the political power in Milwaukee, it did 
not please the astute politicians there to defend their doc- 
trine — the "full consequences" could be given with the bird 
in hand — so it was that the Social Democratic Herald (6-1 3- 1903) 
poured out upon Father Sherman, S. J., "the degenerate son 
of old Tecumseh," the vials of its fury: 



i5e Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

"Sherman is certainly not a scholar, and he showed himself a super- 
ficial fellow. The meanest part of his assault was with regard to social- 
ism and the marriage relation. His charge that the socialists believe in 
loose morals is a miserable slander, one that can only come from a man 
with a foul mind. 

"Only a low whelp would persist in such a slander, in the face of the 
repeated denials of the socialists themselves, in the face of their literature 
on the subject and in the face of the moral standing in the community 
of the socialists themselves. This lie about the attitude of the socialists 
toward marriage is kept up for only one reason, and that is, that filthy 
slander is considered by a man of Father Sherman's calibre an effective 
weapon to use against socialism among the less enlightened members of 
his church. But he defeats hisownends, nevertheless. When such people 
find that he has been lying to them they will even come to mistrust his 
religious teachings." 

Turning to the next page, of this issue, one may find a 
double column advertisement of " Books on International 
Socialism," on sale at the office of the Social Democratic Herald, 
many books from which we have quoted in this work. Is the 
Social Democratic Herald innocent ? Or is it convicted of blatant 
bluffing for the good of the cause ? 

We shall now present a wide variety of specimens of socialist 
literature as proof that the Herald's hypocritical wrath has one 
cause — votes wanted — together with the esteem in which the 
several authors and their works are held by the socialist press. 

"The Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History," by 
the International Socialist Review (August, 1907), is regarded 
highly. We quote: 

"It bids fair to become one of those books which are essential to 
even a small socialist library. . . . Kautsky is without doubt 
entitled to the title of the greatest living exponent of Marxian doctrine." 

On the morality of sexual relation Kautsky has this to say 

(*93)- 

"The same phenomena, say of free sexual intercourse or of indifference 
to property, can in one case be the product of moral depravity in a society 
where a strict monogamy and the sanctity of property are recognized as 
necessary ; in another case it can be the highly moral product of a healthy 
social organism which requires for its social needs neither property in a 
particular woman nor that in particular means of consumption and pro- 
duction." 



Free Love. 181 

Carrying forward the false assumption that sex immorality 
(although their system can logically call nothing moral) finds its 
cause in economics, this resolution on The White Slave Traffic 
carried at the National Congress of the Socialist Party (5-11- 
19x0): 

"Resolved, 1. That it is the sense of this congress that organizers, 
lecturers and the press of the Socialist Party should give careful atten- 
tion to this subject, always laying stress upon the economic cause of 
prostitution and the white slave traffic." 

In her series on the Position of Women in the Socialist Move- 
ment {The Call, 11-20-1910), Mrs. Dora B. Montefiore swings 
from Aristotle, taking the term "natural slaves" as applied to 
wives, to Dr. Elsie Parsons for her argument that the whole 
question of sex morality is one of "class morality:" 

"Therefore, as long as the wage slaves and the wife-slaves of the 
present day do not revolt against existing conditions they will never get 
anything more assured than food, clothes, shelter." 

While the argument that no high born lady ever yet suf- 
fered shameful regulation because of prostitution is assumed to 
be a clear case for democratic women to make a show of revolting 
injustice in as much as no high born lady is ever likely to be in- 
convenienced by the laws regulating prostitution. 

What then is the row about? Ye gods! We are told by 
the pen of an English woman endorsing that of an American 
woman that the row is because a division of labor favors the de- 
velopment of men to the disadvantage of women in these demo- 
cratic days; we quote: 

"If the social stigma were taken off the prostitute, if she were no 
longer a segregated person, prostitution might then become, in the sense 
of a division of labor, more consistent with a democratic point of view. 
It would, nevertheless be untrue to democracy in its large meaning, i. e., 
equal opportunities for the total development of man or woman.' ' 

What to do — now? to bring about the fall of class morality 
and at once to realize a higher installment of democracy? Mrs. 
Montefiore shall speak for herself. (The Call, 12-4-1910): 

"Give all women the vote, and they will strike off the rusty chains 
that hold them still in marriage as the property of the man ; give them 
the vote, and they will help to get maintenance for their children, and will 



1 82 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

force capitalism to respect pregnant and nursing mothers, will insist upon 
laws being passed against the adulteration of food, will see to it that 
women are tried by their peers, will remove the disabilities against chil- 
dren born out of wedlock, and will learn, by refusing to undersell men in 
the labor market, the real comradeship of labor." 

Poor, dear Mrs. Montefiore! She closes her case with a 
discursion into symbolism, supposedly intensive. But mayhap a 
deeper insight into the figures she uses, shall inform the lady's 
mind that the movement of the spiral which she counts on to 
balance up the disproportions of the male and female character, 
proves just the opposite of her would-be conclusion, namely, 
that what the spiral starts with it perforce ends with. For mo- 
tion is the movement of something — in this discussion — human- 
ity. One is the start of every material phenomena, and at every 
full swing of the spiral the same one — extended, expanded and ele- 
vated — holds its position as the beginning of the next swing, just 
as it did at the starting point. Hence, one versed in the numeri- 
cal values of the spiral knows that one is, was, and ever must be 
different in character than two. That there could be no two 
before there was one, though the two is latent in the one. So 
being unlike and unequal at the start in their basic characteris- 
tics, yet exactly complementary in their original design, man 
and woman shall, perforce, never arrive at a point of equality 
so long as material phenomena shall clothe souls with bodies. 

Consequently, "the gynardrooratic " movement of the 
spiral shall at best, take us up to a higher plane, but to a state 
where just the self same basic and complementary differences 
which God gave in the beginning to the two structures — positive 
and negative — of the one human race. However, we may change 
— pervert — this individual design which God gave to each one 
of us, there is no testimony to show that God's designs have 
changed. So science stands by Faith in the declaration that 
God made each one of us perfect. We as individuals and 
as race make ourselves as bad as we are at whatever position 
on the spiral, whether at the point of beginning or at which ever 
turn on the spiral we find ourselves within our own day and 
generation. 

Yet in spite of reason, our experience, and the records of 
history, the conclusion is final that somehow or other, the nature 



Free Love. 183 

of men and women must give way to an impossible equality to 
fit the very much trumped up and popular science of socialism. 
We quote from page 7 of The Introduction to "Woman and So- 
cialism," (Bebel, 1910): 

"The Socialist Party is the only one that has made the full equality 
of women, their liberation from every form of dependence and oppression, 
an integral part of its program ; not for reasons of propaganda, but from 
necessity. For there can be no liberation of mankind without social in- 
dependence and equality of the sexes" 

Of course, as an equality which lies quite outside of the 
nature of God's providence, is the socialist quest, it must be 
made to their especial order — by themselves The order has 
been filled, so the International Socialist Review (June, 1907), 
says, by Robert Rives La Monte in "Socialism — Positive and 
Negative," (Chicago, 1907). The book 

"is brilliant, fearless, searching. It pricks some beautiful bubbles. It 
will ruffle some people's feelings. But it will leave the reader with a 
clearer view of socialism and a better understanding of his own mental 
make-up." 

Rives La Monte makes it clear that he has arranged the 
conditions for just the kind of equality wanted — within a 
state of chaos. After giving Collectiveism and Democracy as 
the sum and substance of socialist platforms, the necessary 
condition for socialist equality is set forth. We quote (p. 89) : 

"Socialist parties do not attack Religion, the Family, or the State. 
But socialist philosophy proves conclusively that the realization of the 
positive political and economic ideals of socialism involves the atrophy 
of Religion, the metamosphosis of the Family and the suicide of the 
State." 

La Monte imparts no new doctrine. Like his predecessors 
and his contemporaries, what beast the metamorphosed family 
shall be, brilliant as he is, he does not picture. Truly it were 
enough to please the devil that the Christian family is to be 
destroyed. 

Perhaps no man better than the eloquent Jean Jaures, 
leader of the Socialist Party in the French Chamber of Depu- 
ties (The Independent, 8-20-1908), has laid out the desired 



184 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

means of passage from matrimonial order to sex anarchy. When 
speaking of the " liberal" divorce laws adopted by the French 
Parliament, M. Jaures proceeds: 

"But the French Parliament has not said the final word on this divorce 
problem. The moment marriage is no longer considered an indissoluble 
social institution, forced on individuals as an indestructible social bond, 
there is no good reason why it should not be left wholly to the will of the 
contracting parties. They were free to make the marriage and should 
in the same way be free to unmake it. In fact, just as the will of one of 
the parties could have prevented the marriage, so the will of one should be 
able to end it. The power to annul should, of course, be all the stronger 
when both parties desire it. As the French mind is very logical, it may 
be surmised therefore, that in due time divorce in France will become 
very free. The first step will be divorce by mutual consent. In this 
case, both parties will make known their wish that the bond be severed, 
and the law will recognize this right without going to an inquiry of any 
kind. The final step will be separation at the demand of one of the parties. 
This is the reform now very ably and vigorously prest by the well-known 
French novelists, the Margueritte brothers." 

In passing, it should be noted that this socialist states- 
man regards the propaganda by novelists as playing an im- 
portant role in the formation of legislative opinion. 

However, the Frenchman has not outdone the would-be 
American legislator on the significance of divorce. In Lucifer 
(1-19-1905) Franklin H. Wentworth, puts in a nutshell the 
"scientific" posture of the party upon the family: 

"All social laws are but the reflex and consequence of economic 
conditions. The world has always considered that thing moral and just 
which is consonant with the laws respecting private property. The 
present form of marriage cannot escape this classification. Woman has 
been private property ; she is still private property, and the laws which 
bulwark conventional marriage bear ample testimony to prove this 
immoral fact. 

"It is the fast growing disregard for private property, and its unjust 
assumptions of right, that is slowly liberating men and women from the 
intolerable conditions of unhappy marriage. Men and women are finding 
a new ethic in the belief that it is immoral for one human being to possess 
any proprietary rights in another. Hence the growing so-called 'evil' of 
divorce is but the colluson of a higher ethic with a lower ; the manifestation 
of health coming out of disease ; the process of readjustment, wholesome 
and full of promise. 

"But one cannot understand this while ignorant of the principle of 
economic determinism." 



Free Love. 185 

Whatever the language, or whatever the particular theme 
of sex-run-mad, all the doctrinaires rest their degenerate story 
on economic determinism. 

In his work, "Socialism and Modern Science," Enrico Ferri 
educes from economic determinism its humanistic terms — 
bread and love, by which latter sex passion is meant. This 
book was published in Italian, it has been translated into 
French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Servian and into English 
by Rives La Monte. 

In writing of Ferri, who is the editor of the socialist daily, 
The Avanti y and a member of the Italian Parliament, The In- 
ternational Socialist Review says that he (Ferri) is the fore- 
most exponent of socialism now living. We quote from a 
review of the book (/. 5. R. y Feb., 1901) : 

"Since the translation of Marx's 'Capital' there has been no greater 
contribution to the socialist movement of the English speaking world than 
is afforded by this work. Under the title "Socialisme et Science Positive' ' 
it had already become one of the classics of the French, Belgian and 
Italian movement. . . . The book is a perfect arsenal of ideas for 
socialist writers and speakers, and must form a part of the equipment ©f 
every well-armed socialist." 

One of these "ideas" Ferri sets forth as follows (p. 48) : 

"When in a family financial affairs run smoothly and prosperously, 
harmony and mutual good-will prevail; as soon as poverty makes its 
appearance, discord and struggle ensue." 

How false is this principle every thoughtful person must 
know from the testimony all about him. It is not true that 
happiness is conditioned upon the quantity of bread and butter 
in the larder. Certainly finance determines whether one shall 
live in an overcrowded tenement or in a mansion, if in the city, 
or in a substantial farm house or in a little wooden shanty if 
in the country. But thanks to the good God finance is not the 
prime factor in determining whether "harmony and mutual 
good will prevail" within the several degrees of domestic pov- 
erty, or abundance. Harmony and good-will may spring from 
one of two sources. It may be the good nature of old Tillie 
or it may be the result of self-discipline, the conquering of 
selfishness, ambition and the other vices to which the human 



186 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

flesh is heir. Of course being merely a negative — a material- 
ist — philosophy, socialism could not be expected to take cog- 
nizance of the positive self -attainment which comes from obedi- 
ence to religious law. The dumpy good nature which comes 
from a full belly, and the sex vanity which is pleased with fine 
apparel, is not of the same stuff as the scanting of one's meal 
that the children may have sufficient food and the cheerful 
surrender of the good clothes to the one who needs them the 
most. Certainly the "harmony and good-will" which is born 
of purely material pleasures will flee out of the window when 
poverty comes in at the door, but it is as the moonlight to the 
sunlight in the heart of the conscious man. In one word, 
the one is nature and the other is grace. Harmony and good- 
will worth the having comes by obedience to the will of God. 

If wealth be sufficient cause of harmony, as is alleged, we 
ask these "modern scientists" how it happens that so much 
disharmony and lack of good-will exists among the rich? Are 
the rich happy and are the poor miserable? No, verily. Hap- 
piness, that elevation of the spirit which is the fruit of religion 
alone, is found with the poor, and it is found with the rich 
— God is no respecter of persons. But, alas! so also is dis- 
cord and misery found alike with the rich and with the poor. 
Elevation is not conditioned upon location. 

Another question to socialists is also pertinent. Do you 
think finance would guard the happiness of your household 
if your mother, wife, daughter or sister were to carry out the 
socialist code of morals — if in answer to a " sudden and urgent 
demand for material resources for party purposes arose, she 
were to sell her body to raise the money?" 

Such a round turn in his experience should bring a man 
to his senses. 

However, the twin pillars of intellectual perversity and 
emotional degeneracy, over which he has arched a "perfect 
arsenal of ideas," Ferri has not neglected to set up : 

"It may be said these two foundamental instincts of life — bread and 
love — by their functioning maintain a social equilibrium in the life of 
animals, and especially in Man. 

" It is love which causes, in the great majority of men. the principal 
physiological and psychical expenditure of the forces accumulated in 



Free Love. 187 

larger or smaller quantities by the consumption of daily bread, and which 
the daily labor has not absorbed or which parasitic inaction has left 
intact. 

"Even more — love is the only pleasure which has a universal and 
equalitarian character. The people have named it 'the paradise of the 
poor,' and religions have always bidden them to enjoy it without limits — 
" be fruitful and multiply ' — because the erotic exhaustion which results 
from it, especially in males, diminishes or hides beneath its pall of for- 
getfulness the tortures of hunger and servile labor, and permanently 
enervates the energy of the individual; and to this extent it performs a 
function to the ruling class." ("Socialism and Modern Science.") 

It would seem that nothing could pass beyond the malice 
of this triple infamy. Is this the limit of insult to Almighty 
God? Is this the vilest slander upon the Christian Church? 
Is this the most radical imposture upon the name of science? 
Answer, you vilifiers of right-reason. 

Honest men, study the word of God and note the frank- 
ness with which lewd and lustful conduct is condemned. The 
Sodomites were wiped from off the face of the earth. The 
sons of Abraham were commanded not to spill their seed 
upon the ground. Marriage was elevated to a sacrament by 
Christ in fulfillment of the Mosaic law given by God. Then 
contrast the customs of pagan Rome, where marriage was 
looked upon as an irksome restraint, and was little resorted to, 
the passions being indulged by intercourse with female slaves. 
Then follow the contrast in ideals and in practices, in the na- 
tions that were converted to the Christian Religion. Then 
look at this insult passing current within the socialist move- 
ment which alleges that sexual excesses were, aye were and are, 
encouraged by the religious to hide "beneath its pall of forget - 
fulness the tortures of hunger and servile labor," and it shall 
be clearly seen that beneath all this intense desire to get the 
political power, with which to reconstruct the several societies 
of the world, is nothing but the deadly hate of truth — of God. 

Citizens, pray consider the facts in the case. Look at the 
command to be "fruitful and multiply" with the pure eyes 
which behold in marriage a sacrament. Think, if you would 
know its meaning, of the loving sex restraint self-put upon a 
man to protect the wife of his heart from his approaches during 
the period of gestation — through the period of nursing. Think 



1 88 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

what it means to sacrifice the sexual desires to the end of main- 
taining marriage as a sacred institution and then read the com- 
mand to be " fruitful and multiply" with the pure light of love, 
rather than with the lustful eye which reads into it the oppor- 
tunity for the "erotic exhaustion," of which Ferri treats. 
Or for that refined damnation, which passes under its several 
"scientific" names, of setting up the sex fluids and translating 
them into "idealistic pleasures." To be fruitful and multiply 
is the clean, the simple command of God to man, it deals not with 
substitutes, but goes straight to the moral core. Use the sex or- 
gans for one purpose only — that of procreation, within the sacred 
bond of matrimony. Outside that bond, no! for adultery is a 
deadly sin and a crime to the integrity of the state. The devil 
cannot paint a blacker picture in vilification of the religious 
effort of the ages to purify the lusts and institute chastity 
amongst men than this socialist classic. Nor can the devil en- 
croach upon the standards of sex morality with more seductive 
garb than that of science. 

And what have scientists to offer towards the perfection 
of the marriage state? Nothing but a fuller obedience to the 
moral law. Nothing but that, from the time of Plato to — well, 
to the latest medical warning against race suicide. 

Perhaps more than any other writer Bebel has influenced 
international opinion upon the sex question within that rapidly 
extending circle of persons who deny religious authority and so 
the validity of the Ten Commandments, for he is indeed a pow- 
erful personality. Herr August Bebel is still (191 1) the veteran 
leader of the Social Democratic Party in the German Reichstag. 
He was first elected to the North German diet from Glauchen 
Meeran district, Saxony, in 1867. In 187 1 he was sent to the 
Imperial Parliament, and with brief exceptions he has remained 
a member ever since. 

Bebel has been associated with the editorship of The Berlin 
Vorwaerts, the leading socialist daily of Germany. Chief among 
his literary productions is "Woman." It is considered the 
international text book on the woman question. In the intro- 
duction to this book, of which there have been fifty editions 
in Germany alone, there is to be found this passage: "I 
request readers to regard the following statements as the expres- 



Free Love. 189 

sion of my personal opinions." Of course this may have been 
to protect the party from seeming to take officially a position 
upon which it had not voted. It may have been modesty, or 
it may have been vanity in him — claiming the first right to 
such a remarkable misconception of historic data. However 
that may be, Bebel's "personal opinions" are an integral part 
of the socialist garment, not to be torn out of its warp and 
woof without rending the coat asunder. 

Socialist women are especially fervid in their endorsement 
of Bebel's opinions. The members of the Socialist Party and 
the Socialist Labor Party have Bebel clubs to enlighten other 
women with the blindness of spiritual death. The editor of 
The Woman's Department of Wilshire's Magazine announces 
a study course by Mrs. Oppenheimer : The subject Woman, with 
Bebel's book as its groundwork. The magazine avers (Sept., 
1910) : 

"No better basis could have been chosen for such a course of study 
than the book on woman written by Bebel.". 

The Socialist Woman (Chicago, Oct., 1907), is no less con- 
fident, we quote: 

"Bebel's book shows how the overthrow of the capitalist system 
and the inauguration of a socialist regime will give her the coveted place 
in social progress for which she vainly strives to-day." 

This vaunted progress is taking woman farther and farther 
away from womanhood, from real knowledge. It is that magi- 
cal thing with which to conjure up the "new woman" — the 
sexless woman, the "equal" of man. The Progressive Woman, 
a socialist monthly, published in Girard, Kansas, places Bebel's 
book second only to " The Origin of the Family," in its list of 
"Books of Interest to Women." 

The National Woman's Committee of the Socialist Party — 
Meta L. Stern, Theresa Malkiel, Dr. Antoinette Konikow, May 
Wood Simons and Winnie Bransteter — took the occasion of his 
seventieth birthday (Feb. 22, 1910) to hail August Bebel as the 
emancipator of woman, we quote. The National Woman's 
Committee of the Socialist Party, say: 

"We too feel privileged to say our August Bebel. Although the 
ocean rolls between his country and ours, although we belong to another 



190 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

nation and speak a different language, he still is ours in heart and spirit. 
For August Bebel and the immortal book that he has given to women 
are as international as socialism itself." 

"Bebel's 'Woman' has become the foundation of the proletarian 
woman's movement of all lands. Coming generations will recognize it as 
a historical document recording the enslavement and the emancipation 
of woman." 

As more than a year has passed since Bebel's pernicious 
work was dubbed "immortal" by their women officials, and as 
no protest has been heard from any section of the country, how 
much credit should be given to a wee, wee voice that here and 
there feels perhaps a momentary prick of conscience and hides 
behind the excuse that Bebel's is a mere personal opinion? 

The Rev. Carl D. Thompson, a socialist lecturer of the 
West, presumably was somewhat restive under its dogma — 
somewhat ashamed to meet its text, which from cover to cover 
is an attack not only upon the marriage bond but upon all 
else w^hich the religious hold sacred. 

Some little time ago Rev. Thompson presented Bebel's 
statement with one of his own, which because it was a mere 
personal opinion it was expected to shield the individual who 
felt the need of protection from Bebel's indecency. " Bebel 
had a perfect right ... to set forth his views as he did, 
whether they were a part of Marx's or not." Certainly, yes. 
But there is not a shadow of doubt that Marx and all other 
"scientific" socialists agreed, and still agree, with this book; 
for they have most industriously circulated it in propagating 
the socialist doctrine. 

"This book contains Bebel's personal opinions"? Good. 
The question is, are Bebel's opinions, written down in " Woman," 
socialist opinions? Emphatically, yes. 

The recent indications are that Mr. Thompson, who has 
dropped his reverend, is not squeamish over the matter, for he 
was one of the seven members of the National Executive Com- 
mittee which recommended Bebel's "Woman" to the party 
membership. Evidently there should be no more quibbling 
as to the separation of Bebel's personal from his socialist opinions, 
since this leader's " opinion" is the official opinion of the party. 
But there is. For the ex-representative to the Massachusetts 
legislature is too good a socialist tactician to leave off the quibble. 



Free Love. 191 

However, Mr. Thompson, sometime reverend, has wholly re- 
covered from the moral shock of Bebel's personal opinions, — 
recovered by familiarity with the monster which he has em- 
braced. Mr. Carl D. Thompson's recent booklet — "What to 
Read and What to Give Others to Read" (Milwaukee, 19 10), 
recommends Bebel's "Woman," "The Origin of the Family," 
and other of the socialist classics on the sexes. So, although 
this brilliant speaker probably takes no more of "the opium 
of the people," as Untermann calls religion, he gives the 
doctrine of sex degredation in copious doses to the people. 

No, we do not quarrel with the fact that Herr Bebel holds 
very vile personal opinions, but rather with the fact that the 
opinions expressed, and purporting to be a scientific analyses, 
in " Woman," have been and are propagated by the International 
Socialist Movement; and that the inculcation of these false and 
vile opinions into the public opinion of our country is a deadly 
peril to the safety of this dear land. Our quarrel is greatly to be 
waged for it is of great consequence. 

Just as "Science and Health, A Key to the Scriptures," 
embodies the personal opinions of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, 
so "Science and Health" also embodies the opinions of the 
members of the "Church of Christ Scientist." Therefore 
"Science and Health" is of much more weight in propagating 
the dogmas of this sect than would be the merely personal 
opinions of "Mother Eddy." 

So, also, "Woman," no longer represents merely the per- 
sonal opinion of a great leader of the party, but it embodies the 
collective opinion of the International Socialist Movement. 

Of course there is this difference — one is the key to the 
" science " of health — while the other is the key to the " science " 
of sex. One denies everything but spirit, while the other denies 
everything but matter in motion. For one there is no body, for 
the other there is no cause. 

What then, is the sex doctrine of the International Socialist 
Movement, propagated by the political parties within the several 
nations ? 

We quote from the 19 10 edition of "Woman": 

" 'Marriage and the family are the foundations of the state. Who- 
ever, therefore, attacks marriage and the family, is attacking society 



192 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

and the state and undermining both.' Thus exclaims the defenders of 
the present order. Monogamic marriage, as has been sufficiently shown, 
Is the outcome of the system of gain and property that has been estab- 
lished by bourgeois society, and therefore undoubtedly forms one of its 
basic principles. But whether it is adapted to natural needs and to a 
healthy development of human society is a different question. We will 
show that this marriage, which depends upon the bourgeois system of 
property, is a more or less enforced relation, having many disadvantages 
and frequently fulfilling its purpose only insufficiently or not at all. "We 
will furthermore show that it is a social institution which is and remains 
unattainable to millions of persons, instead of being a free union founded 
on love, the only union suited to nature's purposes." (Page 104.) 

The earlier editions concluded this paragraph with these 

words: 

■ 

" — A marriage founded upon the free, untrammeled choice of love, 
such as is only possible in a socialistic society.". 

Of course, as nature's purposes have taken the place of the 
Ten Commandments to the humanists et al , it is a much more 
skillful bit of propaganda than the older wording, though the 
self -same doctrine is set forth. Marriage is an invention of 
bourgeois society, a mere safeguard for private property; as 
only when the man may be sure that the children to whom he 
shall leave his property are legitimate is the family property secure 
or the established regime safe. 

It argues nothing to socialist doctrinaires that these facts 
fit in with marriage as a divine institution, as they must, by the 
"materialist conception of history," account for the stability 
of Christian civilization. So the basic principle of capitalist 
society is put into the phrase of bread and love. Woman because 
of her sex, and workmen because of their poverty, are kept in 
slavery; one cause being sufficient in the case of men, while — 
in compliment to women we suppose— a two-fold affliction was 
placed upon her. 

This principle is evolving. Oh, yes, of course, as nothing 
under the sun or above it is without change. Hardly ever, for 
it may be reluctantly admitted, that sometimes two and two 
do seem always to make four. Evolution is working out to the 
end of private property; and to the emancipation of the working 
class for that reason. Also to female equality (no doubt the 



Free Love. 193 

structure of both will change under the psychology of socialist 
suggestion) with the men that shall be under that prognosticated 
classless society, wonderful! 

One must not have in mind love as God made it. " Love " 
as one or the other half, we don't know which, of that basic 
socialist principle is nothing more nor less than the sex sensa- 
tion of the animal become conscious of its sensation in the 
human. Love as the Author of the Ten Commandments made 
it is something other. It brings out the purity of its ecstatic 
colors in. obedience to the chaste desires and the determined 
effort to fulfill the law of God — to increase and multiply. Save 
continence be his choice, one must decide between the evolution 
of love in its chastity, or the devolution of the sex passion in 
the lust of criminality. 

Of course, under Christian civilization men and women 
have, within the limits of reason, been free to choose their 
wedded mates. Consequently to make the freedom of the sexes 
look like slavery in order to apply their formula of " bread and 
love," socialists play high jinks with their own interpretation 
of history. Because they want the license to part, they quarrel 
with the liberty to wed. We quote as before the New York 
edition "Woman" (p. 116): 

"The part played by church and state in this sort of 'sacred marriage' 
is not a worthy one. The state official or the officiating clergyman whose 
task it is to perform the marriage ceremony, never pauses to consider by 
what methods the couple he is about to join in wedlock have been brought 
together. It may be quite evident, that the two are in no wise mated 
either in regard to their ages or in regard to physical and mental quali- 
ties; the bride may, for instance, be twenty and the groom seventy, or 
vice versa; the bride may be beautiful and full of vitality, the groom may 
be old, cross and inflicted with infirmities; it makes no difference to the 
representative of state and church. The marriage is consecrated, and 
the consecration is most solemn in character where the monetary reward 
for this 'holy function* is most generous." 

Simply because the freedom of the sexes to choose their 
mates is held inviolate, neither the church nor the state assumes 
the authority of passing judgment upon the compatibility of 
the persons entering into matrimony. But the religious re- 
quirements are " that both parties . . . be in a state of grace 
when they contract the sacrament of marriage, for two reasons: 



194 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

ist, because they themselves administer the sacrament and 
secondly, because they receive the sacrament." 

Consistency thou art indeed a jewel! Would the socialists 
within the "free society" search into the compatibility of their 
fellows who bed and board together ? 

Indeed the ideal society which is pictured reads like a 
condition of degeneracy with the power in the hands of the 
majority who are subject to no authority but their own un- 
reason. There is to be no government over persons, merely 
an administration of industry. Yet the race is to be bred 
scientifically under a cast-iron environment created by the 
faction in power. Of course all the people of one opinion is 
the glowing ideal held forth. So in case anybody should happen 
to retain the " rabies of Christianity," he shall not be pennitted 
to educate his children in the superstitions of his own religion. 
For the safety of the commune must be looked after, don't you 
know ! 

Together with the persistent iteration that marriage enslaves 
the woman, the idea is played up that even the prostitute 
enjoys a "liberty" above the dignity of wifehood. So it is 
that the idea of the equality of men and women is made to 
appear as a panacea for sex aversion, which is most frequently 
caused by disloyalty of thought or act. We quote, again from 
"Woman" (p. 118): 

"Human beings then [because the new German civil code has made 
divorce more difficult] remain chained to one another for lifetime against 
their will. One party becomes a slave to the other and is forced in ful- 
fillment of 'matrimonial duties,' to endure intimate embraces that perhaps 
j,eem more loathsome than harsh words and ill-treatment. . . . Is 
such marriage not worse than prostitution ? Even the prostitute has :i 
certain degree of liberty of withdrawing from her abominable trade, an 1 
if she is not the inmate of a public brothel, she may refuse herself to a 
man she does not wish for some reason or other. But a woman sold in 
marriage must endure the embraces of her husband, even though she have 
a hundred reasons to hate and despise him.'' 

Does it follow that the awful -state pictured rs the result of 
poverty? Is. this a case of "economic determinism?" Is it 
not rather a case of sin? And shall the whole structure of 
•civilization fall because some men and women, many men and 
women, live in sin and are "chained" together. Far be it 



Free Love. 195 

from us to assume that the vilest may not be restored to morai 
health. The process is quitting sin, not getting deeper into it. 

The truth of the matter is that socialist idealism is mo- 
deled on The Ode to the Prostitute, and so fascinated with its 
deformity are they that everything is measured by its hideous 
standard. It is the two opposing poles which attract atten- 
tion — beauty and deformity — with the abnormal vision de- 
formity is the yard-stick by which all things are measured, so 
the cure for prostitution is to make all women "free wives," 
just as the cure for pauperism is to make all men paupers by 
law. Bebel says, in " Woman " (p 370): 

"As soon as society has become the owner of all means of production, 
the duty to work of all able-bodied persons, regardless of sex, becomes a 
fundamentallaw of socialized society." 

Within the "socialized society" all motherly instincts are 
to be smothered by the economic machine. Women will no 
longer be the mistresses of the homes, in fact there will be no 
homes, — -but women will have equal opportunity, with men, 
to work A charming prospect! Bebel's "Woman" shall 
set it forth in its contradictory detail (pp. 466, 467) : 

"In the new society woman will he entirely independent, both socially 
and economically. She will not be subject to even a trace of domination 
and exploitation, but will be free and man's equal, and mistress of' her 
own lot. Her education will be the same as man's with the exception of 
those deviations that are necessitated by the difference of sex and sexual 
functions. Living under normal conditions of life, she may fully develop 
and employ her physical and mental facilities. She chooses an occupa- 
tion suited to her wishes, inclinations and abilities and works under the 
same conditions as man. Engaged as a practical working woman in 
some field of industrial activity, she may, during the second part of the 
day, be educator, teacher or nurse; during a third she may practice a 
science or an art ; during a fourth she may perform some administrative 
function. She studies, works, enjoys pleasures and recreation with other 
women or with men, as she may choose or as occasions may present 
themselves. 

"In the choice of love she is as free and unhampered as man. She 
woos or is wooed, and enters into a union prompted by no other considera- 
tion but her own feelings. This union is a private agreement, without 
the interference of a functionary, just as marriage has been a private 
agreement until far into the middle ages. Here socialism will create 
nothing new, it will merely reinstate on. a higher level of civilization and 



196 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

under a different social form, what generally prevailed before private 
property dominated society. 

"Man shall dispose of his own person, provided that the gratifica- 
tion of his impulses is not harmful or detrimental to others. The satis- 
faction of the sexual impulse is as much the private concern of each 
individual, as the satisfaction of any other natural impulse. No one is 
accountable to any one else, and no third person has a right to interfere. 
What I eat and drink, how I sleep and dress is my private affair, and my 
private affair also is my intercourse with a person of the opposite sex. 
Intelligence and culture, personal independence, — qualities that will 
become natural, owing to the education and conditions prevailing in 
the new society, — will prevent persons from committing action that 
will prove detrimental to themselves. Men and women in the future 
society will possess far more self-control and a better knowledge of their 
own natures, than men and women of to-day. The one fact alone, 
that the foolish prudery and secrecy connected with sexual matters will 
disappear, will make the relations of the sexes a far more natural and 
healthful one. If between a man and woman who have entered into a 
union, incompatability, disappointment or revulsion should appear, 
morality commands a dissolution of the union which has become un- 
natural, and therefore immoral." 

After such an avalanche of corrupted history, false psycho- 
logy, degenerate suggestion and sinister conclusion, it seems 
almost sufficient to exclaim, death and damnation! Yet, for 
the very reason that this uproar against the moral order and 
the normal understanding of men, so oppresses the faculty of 
common sense, especially of those who are untrained in the art of 
intellectual dissection, that we must reply by a running com- 
ment. 

1 st. Woman as man's equal is not nor never can be woman. 
Woman being unlike is not inferior but rather complementary 
to man. A man and a woman may, indeed, each tip the scales 
at one hundred and fifty pounds, but a unit of weight measures 
the density of flesh, not the difference of opposite sex. The 
standard for measuring a woman is a woman, while that for 
measuring a man is a man. The Second Person in the Blessed 
Trinity — the God man Jesus — is the one perfect standard, and our 
Blessed Mother is the perfect woman, by which to judge all de- 
grees of perfection. Hence, the most practical engagement for 
the vast majority of women is home making, and ever will be. 
Besides the fine arts that make up the material necessities and 



Free Love. 197 

comforts of home life the wife is called upon to spend time and 
energy as advisor and comforter. As mother she is educator 
and nurse, thus her administrative and executive faculties 
have full play, within the domestic circle. As the undivided 
half of her husband the woman creates society, and through 
this means, public sentiment is created which forms the 
psychological atmosphere within which the laws of the nation 
are codified. For those other women not inclined to wifehood 
and motherhood there is a whole world of work being done and 
waiting to be done— to follow out to its practical import our 
prayer that God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

2d. Man's body in marriage has become one with that of 
his wife ; hence his own person is not at the disposal of his single 
will. Nor is the satisfaction of the sexual impulse a matter of 
his private concern. For his natural impulse is under the 
restraint of the moral law, and he has no sex rights save jointly 
with his wife. 

3d. Woman is "free" — she does have the power to follow 
her own feelings and so go from disgrace to disgrace. But if her 
own feelings be not pure her rights and her feelings are at odds. 
Her sex rights are only within the limits of her moral relation- 
ship, though her feelings may bid her follow socialist instruc- 
tion, and her power enables her to do so in defiance of her 
rights. 

. 4th, With the power of disobedience to the moral order, 
mistaken for the freedom of the natural order, socialist philoso- 
phy persuades the people that the abnormal has become the 
natural — that the restraints of virtue have turned the oppor- 
tunities of personal experience and culture into a vice. 

So it is that by the German the Sixth Commandment is 
blotted out without the ceremony of doing so, yet to the Yankee 
it was left to put on the utilitarian polish. We quote from 
"Mass and Class" (p. 16), by W. J. Ghent: 

"It is a commonplace of sociologists that marriage (using the term 
in its broadest sense) had its origin in the individualistic accumulation 
of property ; and thus the most sacred sentiments which have gradually 
grown up about our ideas of chastity and love are the outcome of the 
desire of some remote savage to transmit his overplus of fishhooks and 
arrows to a legitimate heir." 



198 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Considering the fact that socialism makes a world issue of 
"sex freedom," and that it squares its political demands with 
its philosophy relative to the family, it surely were better to 
err on the side of a surplus of testimony rather than to scant the 
evidence of its position. Yet as a matter of historic fact the 
work which forms the basis of the International Socialist Move- 
ment comes jointly from the pen of Marx and En gels. And as 
their philosophy has never been radically departed from, upon 
these teachings socialism must stand or fall." 

Frederick Engels, whose position on the family we shall 
present, is the farther of the "materialist basis of history" from 
the socialist standpoint. He was the life long friend and co- 
worker of Karl Marx. From 1844 to the time of Marx's death, 
their work is so interwoven that one shares equal credit with 
the other. They are known in socialist circles as the fathers of 
^modern scientific revolutionary socialism." Together Marx 
and Engels wrote the "Communist Manifesto," which social- 
ists consider "the most important political document ever 
issued." It has a much larger international circulation than 
any other of their pamphlets. 

Engels edited the first English edition of "Capital." He 
also edited the second and third volumes of "Pas Kapital." 
Among his numerous publications are " Socialism, Utopian and 
Scientific," "The Roots of Socialist Philosophy," "The Condi- 
tion of the Working Class in England in 1844," "Landmarks of 
Scientific Socialism," and "The Origin of the Family, Private 
Property and the State." This latter book was worked out 
from rough notes of Marx, after his death. 

The People, (New York, Jan. 12, 1900) referring to these 
men, says: 

. "Among the men whom the conditions of the nineteenth century 
raised up as mouthpieces of the proletarian revolution, two stand pre- 
eminent — -Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Their lives were closely 
united from the beginning of their friendship in 1844 to the day of Marx's 
death in 1883. They were so intimately connected in their activities 
that the work of the one can hardly be considered separately from that 
of the other.'! 

In "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific," Engels lays down 
the boundaries within which socialist governmental functions 



Free Love. 199 

will be confined. It counsels the free marital association be- 
tween men and women, no intervention of Church or state. It 
would create, what socialists and anarchists term, a " free 
family/' We ask your careful reading of the following quota- 
tion that you may see that free love is to reign triumphant 
within the socialist co-operative commonwealth. 

"With the seizure of the means of production in the name of society 
. . .. . The interference of the state in social relations becomes super- 
fluous in one domain after another, and falls of itself into desuetude. 
The place of a government over persons is taken by the administration of 
things and the conduct of the processes of production. The state is not 
•abolished'— It Pies Out.'' 

No state, for patriotism is 'a curse!' 
No family, for love is 'freeJ' - - 

. From "The Roots of Socialist Philosophy," by Frederick 
Engels (1903), we take this: "I" 

.■;--.-- "Feelings of affection between man and man, and particularly 
between members of the two sexes, have existed as long as mankind has. 
Love between the sexes has been cultivated especially during the last 
eighteen hundred years and has won a place which has made it, in this 
period, a compulsory motive for all poetry. The existing positive re- 
ligions have limited themselves in this matter to the bestowal of com- 
plete consecration upon the State regulation of sexual love, and might 
completely disappear to-morrow without the least difference taking place 
in the matter of love and friendship." 

What may this mean? Is it but the knack for slippery 
writing which gives us a statement and a contradiction of it 
in the same paragraph ? During the Christian era love has 
won a higher place in the lives of men; because of the moral 
qualities — charity, justice, love, wisdom, faith and hope — 
taught and practiced by the religious. But for all the work 
— the long and devoted effort to elevate the race — the Church 
and the state might be broken down to-morrow "without the 
least difference taking place in the matter of love and friendship, ' ' 
so say these materialist philosophers, when speaking plainly to 
the issue. Let us ask, is the environment which cultivated — 
which purified — human affection no longer necessary to support 
and advance it? Have human love and friendship climaxed at 



200 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

the top notch of perfection? Is there nothing left to strive for? 
With mere "sex fondness" as their only guide to conduct, 
would not men and women fall under its debasing standard ? 
If men do not go forward will they not move backward? 

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart — 
and thy neighbor as thyself. This is the Law. The husband 
and the wife are made one flesh. This is the Law, which has 
made itself felt during all these Christian centuries. And it 
follows that personal and social obligations have hung like 
a millstone about the neck of the unfaithful. Were this knowl- 
edge darkened from the mind of man, perdition would catch 
each fleeing soul. 

We must insist, that from the beginning God's Law is 
Perfect,— and we must further insist that human perfection 
is the nearer and yet nearer approach to the Perfect Law. 

But let Engels speak : 

"We must either despair of mankind, and its aims and efforts, when 
we see all our labor and toil result in such a mockery, or we must admit 
that human society has hitherto sought salvation in a false direction ; 
we must admit that so total a reversal of the position of the sexes can 
have come to pass only because the sexes have been placed in a false 
position from the beginning." ("Condition of the Working Class in 
England in 1844.") 

We must certainly despair of mankind if civilized nations 
fall into the socialist slough of despond. 

"If the reign of the wife over the husband, as invariably brought 
about by the factory system, is inhuman, the pristine rule of the husband 
over the wife must have been inhuman too. If the wife can now base 
her supremacy upon the fact that she supplies the greater part, nay, the 
whole of the common possession, the necessary inference is that this 
community of possession is no true and rational one, since one member 
of the family boasts offensively of contributing the greater share. If 
the family of our present society is being thus dissolved, this dissolution 
merely shows that, at bottom, the binding tie of this family was not 
family affection, but private interest lurking under the cloak of pretended 
community of possession." ("Condition of the Working Class in Eng- 
land in 1844.") 

But the family of "our present society" is not being thus 
dissolved, save that portion of it which falls under atheistical 
teachings, and succumbs. To such the toil and labor of the 



Free Love, 201 

atheist has resulted in a mockery — black as the devil. Tc 
declare that the religious effort to elevate the family relation- 
ship has proved a mockery is the result of a distorted vision 
— the inability of the "socialist mind" to see that during all 
the years that are passed since our Blessed Lord turned the water 
into wine to make glad the wedding day, at the request of His 
own Mother, those families living in the love of the Father, 
under the counsels of the Son and by the spirit of the Holy 
Ghost, have a comfort and a joy not in the power of this world 
to give or to take away. Ask the mother, who for the first time 
trundles her first born over the country road or through the 
crowded city street, is there any joy like unto her joy in the 
knowledge that God has loaned her a precious soul to lead 
back to Him? To that ecstacy, what a hell is the opposite 
brought on by that woman who has carried her philosophy into 
the practice of using her sex as she pleases. Were socialists 
to understand the difference between the Perfect Law and the 
necessarily imperfect (because human) demonstration of it, 
many things, which now lie in darkness, would be revealed to 
their minds. We pray their hearts may be opened to the light. 

Meantime we shall do what we may to show that although 
as science the doctrine is groundless, yet this is no balm for over- 
confidence. For it is error when acted upon that brings disaster 
to the state. Neither is the danger of error afar off so long as 
the majority are unaffected with the virus. For a small minority 
once thoroughly innoculated with the poison that is being 
sprayed broadcast, is quite sufficient to bring on the revolution. 
Suppose a repetition of the coal strike of 1902 were on with the 
power of the men not in the hands of a Mitchell but in the irre- 
sponsible hands of a socialist, what then could happen with 
the wheels of the national industries paralized? 

Of all the books on the sex question that is fanning the 
flames of the revolution, "The Origin of the Family" stands 
foremost. We desire here to give testimony as to its position 
in the socialist world. Karl Kautsky has the following to say : 

" In the summer of 1884 Engels published his work on the 'Origin 
of the Family, Private Property and the State,' in which he carried 
out what Marx himself had planned. He gave to the public the investi- 
gations of Morgan, and at the same time enlarged upon them. Morgan, 



2o2 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

in his pre-historic studies, had arrived at the same materialistic concep- 
tion of history which Marx and Engels had reached in their historical 
investigations. The orthodox knowledge of the time sought to suppress 
Morgan as they. had previously tried to do with Marx. It was necessary 
not only to save him from threatened oblivion, but also to fill in the his- 
torical gaps in Morgan's investigations ; to fit these into the frame of the 
Marx-Engels materialistic conception of history and to blend in one 
uniformly developed series the pre-historic and historic. Nothing less 
than this is accomplished in this book.' 7 ("Frederick Engels, His Work, 
and His Writings.") 

All "scientific" socialists, writers and speakers, follow. the 
lines laid down in this book. It is the criterion by which the 
truth or falsehood of socialist doctrine is made known. 

The socialist publishers of this book say : 

"This book, now for the first time offered to English readers, is one of 
the most notable works of the man who shares with Marx the honor of 
being the first to formulate the principles of modern socialism. It is a 
work which no student of social science, whatever his opinions may be, 
can afford to overlook. It is moreover a powerful argument for socialism f 
showing as it does how our present social forms have resulted inevitably 
from economic conditions, and how the changing conditions will as 
inevitably develop new forms "based on common ownership of the means 
of production. To those who have at heart the emancipation of women 
this work of Engels will be a revelation, showing them at once the real 
causes of the wrongs now suffered hy women and the one way of escape.' \ 

" The Appeal To Reason/ ' in its-' " special '■ religious s edi- 
tion" (Girard, Kansas, Feb. 21, 1903), r recommends the "Com- 
munist Manifesto" and "The Origin of the Family" as text 
books from which to gain the understanding of the socialist- 
position on marriage,; ■ : - ....... . . __....._ .... 

" This book has long since been translated into nearly every civilized 
language except English, and thousands of American readers will enjoy- 
and profit by it as soon as it can be brought to their attention." 

"For the student of social science, 'The Origin of the Family' is of 
great importance because it gtyes in condensed form the actual results 
of the investigations of the last half century into the beginnings of the 
marriage relation. It is no mere grouping of facts, out the data are dealt 
with by a hand that can use them. Thus the book is as useful to" the 
socialist propagandist as -to the .student. Any reader who masters this 
work of Engels will be rid, once for all, of the complacent notion that 
things have always been as they are, and therefore must always remain 
so. He will also find himself better able to understand the complicated 



' f Fr^e Love. 203 

problem which must soon be faced of adjusting the relations of husband 
and wife, parent and child, to the radically different economic conditions 
which are near at hand." (International Socialist Review, Chicago, 

Sept. 1902.) -, . 

The following endorsement is from The Comrade, John 
Spargo, editor (New York, November, 1902) : 

"One of the most important issues of that excellent Standard Socialist 
Series is 'The Origin of the Family,' by Frederick Engels, now for the first 
time translated into English by Ernest Untermann. This book, first 
published in 1884, has been translated into almost every European lan- 
guage and has long been regarded as one of the 'classics' of socialist 
philosophical literature. That it had not been heretofore accessible to 
English readers is surprising, and too much cannot be said in praise of 
the publishers who have supplied the movement with an admirable 
translation. 

"It was, so Engels informs us, the intention of Marx himself to 
publish a work pointing out the importance and value of Morgan's inves- 
tigations, and he left exhaustive critical notes prepared with that intent, 
so that in a manner this little work contains the blended efforts of those 
three intellectual giants, Morgan, Marx and Engels. There are the origi- 
nal researches of Morgan, the critical acumen of Marx and the added 
information of Engels upon the Celts and Germans. Need anything else 
be said to commend it to the reader? " 

. Next, we present the encomium of the International So- 
cialist Review, A. M. Simons, editor, in the October number 
(1902), for we desire to make it clearly apparent that this 
book is of supreme authority in the socialist movement, as 
against any moral revolt that an individual here and there may 
have upon this subject. 

"This book has long been known as one of the great socialist classics 
and has been translated into almost every other language than English. 
It is in many senses a supplement to Marx's 'Capital' in that it begins at 
the very origin of things whose climax and latest developments are de- 
scribed in 'Capital.' 

" . . . . The book is really one of the two or three great 
socialist classics and now that it is in English it must find a place in the 
library of every one who hopes to master the real fundamental philosophy 
underlying socialism.'! 

We shall make The Worker, Algernon Lee, editor, speak 
for itself. Referring toFrederick Engels' " Origin of the Family/ ' 
and another socialist classic, it says; "These will be among the 



204 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

most important additions to the literature of socialism in the 
English language since the translation of 'Capital. ' " (July 13, 

1903-) ' : 

This quotation was taken from the edition which appeared 
seven days before The Worker , with blooming editorial audacity 
challenged the Catholic Light to cite one speech or written article 
in support of the declaration that socialism is an attack upon 
the home, the family and the church. Later on, October 12, 
1902, The Worker again endorses "The Origin of the Family" 
by saying: 

"An English translation of this great socialist classic has long beer 
needed and many socialists will now for the first time have an opportunity 
to read and profit by it." 

Still later, possibly forgetting its challenge to produce 
evidence on December 21, 1902, 'The Worker publishes four 
columns of extracts from this book, beginning with the following 
statement : 

'"THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND 

THE STATE.' By Frederick Engel. Translated by Ernest Unter- 

mann. 

"Like 'Capital,' the 'Communist Manifesto,' and 'Socialism, Uto- 
pian and Scientific,' this book is one of the great classics of socialist 
literature. It has already been translated into every other civilized 
language, and the translation into English is as necessary and valuable 
as it is belated. 

"This work of Engels is based on the discoveries set forth in the 
' Ancient Society ' of the American, Lewis H. Morgan, which was published 
in 1877. Morgan had, to a certain extent, discovered for himself the 
materialistic conception of history originated by Marx and Engels. 
Marx had planned to write such a work as this one which his friend Engels 
completed after his death. 

"The work is one which will be of absorbing interest to all students 
of social science who have not read it in the original, and the depth and 
keeness of the reasoning of Morgan, Engels and Marx combine to provide 
an intellectual feast for the student.". 

We now come to the "classic" itself. "The Origin of the 
Family." We quote from the division. SAVAGERY: 

- "1. Lower Stage. Infancy of the human race. Human beings 
still dwelt in their original habitation, in tropical or subtropical forests. 



Free Love. 205 

They lived at least part of the time in trees, for only in this way they could 
escape the attacks of large beasts of prey and survive. Fruit, nuts and 
roots served as food, The formation of articulated speech is the principal 
result of this period. Not a single one of all the nations that have become 
known in historic times dates back to this primeval stage. 

"Although the latter may extend over thousands of years, we have 
no means of proving its existence by direct evidence. But once the de- 
scent of man from the Animal Kingdom is acknowledged, the acceptance 
of this stage of transition becomes inevitable." (Pages 27 and 28.) 

This is easy! What one don't know he may fancy he 
knows. But before one can take the first "scientific" step, 
at this point, he must plant his foot hard down upon his " living 
imagination." One must some how or other span the gap 
which "science" most confidently assumes the race to have 
passed. As this is the place for links, why not complete the 
chain by placing Heackel's Sir Linkship, "Pithecanthropus 
Erectus of Java" in the ditch, and so fill up the gap? 

Of course not! Why should even one of all the nations 
that have become known in historic times date back to a pri- 
meval stage of which there is not a scintilla of evidence in proof? 
Now this fact should teach "scientists," who are supposed to 
deal with knowledge, a little modesty in making assertions 
which are not supported with data in proof. Humanism as 
a deduction from animalism is all very well as a psuedo philoso- 
phy—as an intellectual toy, but as science it is no better than a 
brass monkey. 

Taking the socialist philosophy as his basis one might, with 
some show of reason, conclude that the monkey is a degenerate 
man. If the superior force can make a man out of a monkey, 
the stunt of the prepondrance of force making a monkey out of 
a man is not so great after all? At all events, newspaper-science 
once reversed the theory of Darwin, 

L'Autorite (Paris), says Professor Haeckel, the German 
scientist and (now once) professor at Jena University, while 
travelling in Java recently, in search of the missing link, dis- 
covered striking evidence that monkeys are descended from 
man, and not man from monkeys. 

Professor Haeckel, according to the paper, says "that chil- 
dren, when lost in the forests, adopt monkey habits." 



206 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

This is not so strange, for some men appear to be of close 
kin to monkeys, who are not lost in the woods. 

Certainly, one must accept atheistic conclusions when 
once their materialistic premise is proven. However, the ques- 
tion is not regarding the process of man's advent upon this 
material earth, but rather the deeper one regarding the ultimate 
origin of man. Is he the child of God or the thing of chance? 
So until such time as the " descent of man from the Animal 
Kingdom" shall have been proven it is the wise— not to mention 
the pious course to stand by revelative knowledge which has 
never yet failed man as a faithful guide. Until the missing link 
is found, socialist "science" is a rope of sand. But whether it 
be found or not, socialist philosophy must ever be a blasphemy 
against God, because it is false, missing link or no missing link. 
We would not be misunderstood as meaning that in any event 
a material science has the last word to say. For as science is 
but the handmaiden to Religion, she must await the well done 
of Theology — the master of science. 

Because the socialist mind and the atheist are twin furies, 
and for the reason that Rev. L. A. Lambert's dialogue might as 
well have been with a class-conscious socialist, we quote from his 
"Tactics of Infidels:" 

"LAMBERT. When will the infidel understand that he is not the 
accepted judge of the nature of mature manhood? When will he under- 
stand that man began his career on this planet in mature manhood and 
not in infancy? When will he learn that the egotism of assuming that 
manhood is more mature at present than it was four thousand years ago 
is puerile nonsense or a miserable begging of the question? When will 
he learn that snarling at everything sacred, as a rabid cur snaps and 
snarls at straws, is no evidence of sense or manhood ? In a word, when will 
he get into his skull that if his brains had never developed there would 
still be brains enough in the world to get along with? What has infidelity 
or scepticism ever done for the world? We look over the surface of the 
earth in vain, and through all time in vain, for any such evidence of its 
beneficent tracks. Its past leaves no monument to be honored ; its 
present is destructive of morality, social order and liberty; its disciples 
are proud, self-conceited and egotistic; it pilfers the results of the labors 
of honest workers in the field of knowledge and the fruits of Christian 
enlightenment, and unblushingly parades these stolen properties as its 
own; it talks of love for mankind with lips white with hate; of mercy 
now, but when it had the power, as in the French revolution, it proved 
that it had it not ; it talks of honor, when its principles leave no reason for 



Free Love. 207 

its existence ; of woman while it strips her of all real dignity and leaves 
fief no more than a female animal; it talks of virtue, while in its code the 
word has no meaning. Spectre-like it moves down the ages with Chris- 
tianity, gibbing and gibbering as monkeys in the equatorial regions bar and 
interrupt the advances of the civilized explorer. It enjoys the fruits 
of Christian civilization as the barnacle or parasite enjoys the vigorous 
health of a stronger organism, or as a tubercle lives on the human lungs. 
It is an intellectual disease.' '. 

Surely socialism is an intellectual disease ! The mind 
becomes gangrene, there is no vitality left for a wholesome 
understanding of life Abnormal things become the common- 
place in their view; irrational principles are the ground floor of 
their sciences; while blasphemy takes the seat that should be 
occupied by Faith. Proceeding with an animal-humanism, 
that is indeed logically drawn from an atheistical premise, they 
pile up minutiae mountains high to smother the breath of right 
reason. Just as busy as the devil would have them, socialists 
work at the destruction of the belief in the sacred origin of the 
family. Yet every capable and sincere statesman knows that 
the God-ordained family which lasts as long as life lasts is the 
bulwark between our young republic and that abomination of 
desolation which divorce brings on apace. It were, no doubt, 
hard to find a less interested witness to the part played by 
Faith than the late Hon. Carroll D. Wright. We quote: 

"Large and increasing as the number of divorces in the United States 
is, it is an undeniable fact that were it not for the wide-spread influence 
of the Roman Catholic Church the number would be much greater. The 
loyalty of Catholics to the teachings and doctrines of their Church, and 
the fact that one of the cardinal doctrines of the Church is that Christian 
marriage is a holy sacrament which, when consumated, can be dissolved 
for no cause and in no manner, save by death, has unquestionably served 
as a barrier to the volume of divorce which, except among the members 
of that church is, and during the past twenty years has been, assuming 
ever increasing proportions throughout the country." ("Marriage and 
Divorce," p. 122.) 

Over against the stability of the family, made secure by 
the self-sacrifice of the faithful, is set the world-wide circulation 
of" The Origin of the Family. " We quote (p. 79) : 

"Monogamy was the first form of the family not founded on natural, 
but on economic conditions, viz.: the victory of private property over 
primitive and natural collectivism,'! 



208 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

In other words, Engels and Marx say that monogamy is 
not a natural form of the family, never has been. 

Yet what should be natural to their philosophy if not the 
results of economic determinism? Truly, they have no Original 
Design rolling out to its ultimate purpose, nor no Divine Provi- 
dence in control of the phenomena of the Cosmos. What then, 
should this pronouncement of Engels and Marx mean? Simply 
this, it is one of their ever present perverse contradictions^— 
the cropping up of the inherent unreason of their system of 
thought, if it may be so dignified. Their perverse oppositions 
are meant to run parallel with the basic oppositions of natural 
phenomena, as light and darkness, mighty and little, long and 
short. 

By denying that monogamy is a natural form of the family, 
they deny what is obviously the one only form that can be 
no further reduced, no further simplified. Hence the one 
pure, natural form of the family extant, reasoned, or ideally 
conceived. 

But what is the belief instilled into the popular mind by 
this supposedly scientific denial of the monogamic as the natural 
family? Most assuredly that free love is the natural state of 
which men have been deprived. 

What then is the practical import of this belief? Most 
assuredly also that the natural family shall return with the return 
to collectivism which is the natural form of holding property. 
The natural form of the family by the pronouncement of Engels 
and Marx is the communal herd. This is the long and the short 
of socialist doctrine regarding the sex relations. 

Happily, this is in direct hostility to the revelative law, 
natural and supernatural. To declare that monogamy is not 
the natural form of the family is to deny that perfect design of 
the family which God created and to cast contempt upon re- 
ligious truth. What God hath joined together let not man 
put asunder. 

If socialists were to present a higher ideal, it certainly 
would be worthy of grave con sideratiom But the fact of the 
matter is, they present no form whatever; their program con- 
sists in the destruction of monogamy— the natural, inevitable 
form of the family, if there is to be one. This perfect ideal form 



Free Love. 209 

is imaged in the heart of every true man and pure woman, and 
it is not to be torn asunder by the vandal hand of irreligious, of 
unscientific philosophy. 

Imagine the love scene in which you promise to be true 
to the love of your heart's desire until — well, perhaps the next 
moon. 

Of course, if monogamy is the first form of the family 
founded upon unnatural conditions, one must conclude that 
the herding of men and women, the promiscuous, the punalunan, 
or the consanguin family was the natural form, founded upon 
natural conditions. But, having an if to start with, against 
which there is proof, we may drop this point as having no 
weight. 

That economic conditions and economic ambitions play 
a part in the make-up of many marriages is well known. But 
that the monogamic family was founded upon property, as 
socialists assert, is quite a different proposition. 

Socialists allege that the desire of man for " children that 
could be his offspring alone and were destined to be the heirs 
of his wealth ' ' was the economic condition which introduced 
monogamy. No doubt many men have married for this reason. 
But what has that to do with the simple, patent fact that the 
natural family is one man, one woman and their child. Not 
the child of another man or woman, but these three persons 
that as a family are one. Whether the union of the man and 
the woman, which resulted in the establishment of the family, 
were from pure or from mixed or from impure motives, has 
nothing to do with the origin of the family, however greatly 
it have to do with the happiness of the family. 

"Monogamy — does by no means enter history as a reconciliation of 
man and wife and still less as the highest form of marriage. On the 
contrary, it enters as the subjugation of one sex by the other, as the 
proclamation of an antagonism between the sexes unknown in all 
preceding history. In an old unpublished manuscript written by Marx 
and myself in 1846, I find the following passage: 'The first division of 
labor is that of man and wife in breeding children.' And to-day I may 
add: The first class antagonism appearing in history coincides with the 
development of the antagonism of man and wife in monogamy, and the 
first class oppression with that of the female by the male sex." ("Origin 
of the Family," page 79.) 



2IO Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Engels is right, "monogamy does not enter history as a 
reconciliation of man and wife." Monogamy enters history 
as the design of Almighty God in peopling the earth with his 
children. If the design be kept pure grace and happiness 
abound, but if the design be befouled 
- - ■ 
"Barren hate, 

Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew 
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly 
That you shall hate it both : therefore take heed, 
As Hymen's lamps shall light you." 

That man must earn his bread in the sweat of his brow 
we know, but that the bearing of children is work in the economic 
sense we deny. It brings a false philosophy to a point of disgust 
to say so. Though it should be expected that those who are 
seeking to establish an impossible equality between the sexes 
should mentally create oppositions that are not only absurd 
but an outrage against common sense. 

"The modern monogamous family is founded on the open or disguised 
domestic slavery of women, and modern society is a mass composed of 
molecules in the form of monogamous families. In the great majority 
of cases the man has to earn a living and to support his family, at least 
among the possessing classes. He thereby obtains a superior position that 
has no need of any legal special privilege. In the family, he is the bour- 
geois, the woman represents the proletariat. In the industrial world, 
however, the specific character of the economic oppression weighing on 
the- proletariat appears in its sharpest outlines only after all special 
privileges of the capitalist class are abolished and the full legal equality 
of both classes is established. A democratic republic does not abolish 
the distinction between the two classes. On the contrary, it offers the 
battleground on which this distinction can be fought out. Likewise the 
peculiar character of man's rule over woman in the modern family, the 
necessity and the manner of accomplishing the real social equality of the 
two, will appear in broad daylight only then, when both of them will 
enjoy complete legal equality. It will then be seen that the emancipation 
of women is primarily dependent on the reintroduction of the whole 
female sex into the public industries. To accomplish this, the monoga- 
mous family must cease to be the industrial unit of society." ("Origin 
of the Family/' page 89.) 

Engels and Marx bring ever from what purports to be an 
impartial analysis of industrial relations the same conclusion, 
viz. , an attack upon the Christian family. Always the abnormal 



Free Love. 211 

usurps the place of the normal; here the emancipation of the 
whole female sex spells the degeneracy of the family ; and when 
the monogamic family practically ceases to be the industrial 
unit, then the body politic itself were suffering in the last stages 
of degeneracy, for the people have no homes. Private property 
did not indeed institute the family, but it is the support and 
ever must be of the family. Family property being the natural 
— the necessary— unit of civil wealth, it should be evident that 
were the individual to be considered the economic unit of 
society the wage would become sufficient only for the support 
of the individual not for the Support of the family. Hence 
the state cradles for homes would necessarily be out of date. 

More's the pity! adding to the clamor of the socialists, 
world wide, the whole international woman suffrage movement 
cries shrilly for the "industrial freedom of women." With 
this term a great body of women, who have not enough to do 
to keep themselves out of mischief, accept the degradation 
proposed for the mothers of the race. The strident demand 
for votes for women, at the legislative hearing in the good old 
Bay State (19 10) unblushingly backed up its cause with an 
argument anent the "trade of motherhood." Of course, that 
the state should be the employer of wifeless mothers and the 
keeper of fatherless children is in strict keeping with the teach- 
ing of Engels and Marx in "The Origin of the Family." 

After dose after dose of scientific balderdash is given out, 
which only to the diseased intellect could seem possible or 
desirable, there is set forth a kind of history so outrageous as 
only the enemies of God know how to invent. We quote 
(pp. 85-86, "Origin of the Family"): 

"Civil matrimony in our day is of two kinds. In Catholic countries, 
the parents provide a fitting spouse for their son as of old, and the natural 
consequence is the full development of the contradictions inherent %n 
monogamy : voluptuous hetaerism on the man's part, voluptuous adultery 
of the woman. Probably the Catholic Church abolished divorce for the 
simple reason that it had come to the conclusion, there was as little help 
for adultery as for death. In Protestant countries, again, it is the custom 
to give the bourgeois son more or less liberty in choosing his mate. Hence 
a certain degree of love may be at the bottom of such a marriage and for 
the sake of propriety this is always assumed, quite in keeping with 
Protestant hypocrisy. In this case hetaerism is carried on less strenously 



212 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

and adultery on the part of the woman is not so frequent. But as human 
beings remain under any form of marriage what they were before marrying, 
and as the citizens of Protestant countries are mostly philistines, this 
Protestant monogamy on the average of the best cases confines itself 
to the community of a leaden ennui, labelled wedded bliss. The best 
mirror of these two species of marriage is the novel, the French novel for 
the Catholic, the German novel for the Protestant brand. In both of these 
novels they 'get one another;' in the German novel the man gets the girl, 
in the French novel the husband gets the horns. It does not always go 
without saying which of the two deserves the most pity. For this reason 
the tediousness of the German novels is abhorred as much by the French 
bourgeois as the 'immorality' of the French novels by the German philis- 
tine. Of late, since Berlin became cosmopolitan, the German novel begins 
to treat somewhat timidly of the hetaerism and adultery that a long time 
ago became familiar features of that city. 

"In both cases the marriage is influenced by the class environment 
of the participants, and in this respect it always remains conventional. 
This conventionalism often enough results in the most pronounced pros- 
titution— sometimes of both parties, more commonly of the woman. She 
is distinguished from a courtesan only in that she does not offer her body 
for money by the hour like a commodity, but sells it into slavery for once 
and all. Fourier's words hold good with respect to all conventional 
marriage: 'As in grammar two negatives make one affirmative, so in 
matrimonial ethics, two prostitutions are considered as one virtue.' 
Sexual love in man's relation to woman becomes and can become the rule 
among the oppressed classes alone, among the proletarians of our day — 
no matter whether this relation is officially sanctioned or not." 

No! This is not a chapter taken bodily from a French 
novel, it is rather the leperous intellect crying unclean ! unclean ! 
in spite of its own protest to be thought whole. Yet save the 
forefending flame of the Holy Ghost burn off the deadly stench 
of its breath, there is danger even to the mind of one who passes 
by with lingering glances from afar off. 

The last sentence quoted is of striking import. Its study 
shall show why socialist colonies have proved failures. As 
the only authority is self-constituted, one man's opinion is as 
good as another, so the passions of the men break through the 
economic schemes they have themselves established for their 
own benefit. Finally, the most authoritative man takes 
anarchistic charge of the industrial affairs. Meanwhile the 
familiarity of the sexes is the chief cause of their social disrup- 
tion. In the absence of authority, sacred or secular, to maintain 
the family integrity of which there is more or less pretense, so 



Free Love. 213 

it is that the basic elements of their philosophy— " bread and 
love" when reduced to their naked application, quickly bring 
social order to grief. 

And, too, the study of this one note shall show how it 
happens that the power of the mob, as at Barcelona, falls under 
the direction of socialist leadership. Those men "who have 
nothing to loose but their chains, and a world to gain," are 
made to believe what they want to believe, namely, that 
the rule for them is to do what they please, having no regard 
for what Church or state may say. 

Why so bold? Because they themselves shall soon be in 
possession of the public power; and by that time the moral, 
the ecclesiastical power of the Church shall have been thrown 
to the dogs. Thus at once is said good riddance to the crack 
of the policeman's club and to the fears of hell. 

Moreover, the lust for irresponsible power is whetted by 
the pride of ignorance, and both let go together. For the 
science of life is made easy and becomes the cock-sure pos- 
session of men who hardly know a big B from a little broom- 
stick. The recent standard bearer of the red flag in New York 
boasts that this is so. We quote (The Call, 5-31-1911) : 

"To-day we have two dailies and a host of weekly socialist papers all 
interpreting socialism, revolutionary Marxian socialism, to the plain 
people, the people whose vocabulary does not go above 2,500 to 3,000 
words, We surely have reason to be satisfied with our progress.'! 

That bigotry by "law established" was not the shake of 
a stick to that being evolved by the socialist press. And just 
as when our dear Lord walked upon the earth doing good, the 
evil spirits never failed to give their hateful testimony to His 
Divine power, so now does the evil genius of socialism give 
its testimony that the " black international" is the one formida- 
ble defense of the present order. 

A fine term this! — the present order. Not the work of the 
'prentice but of the practiced hand. For the present order is 
not Christian civilization disfigured though it be with the ugly 
scars of vice. No, the "present order" replaces the nation 
whose authority is from God. It is but that "evolutionary 
state" consistent with socialist principles, namely, that the 



214 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

interests of private property hold the dominant place, while 
the interests of human life hold the secondary place in the 
affairs of man. The whole significance of socialist propaganda 
is lost if the student drops this fact out of his reckoning, at 
any point. Yet, though their vision distorts all things, social- 
ists know very well that religion is the bulwark of the family 
and that the family is the bulwark of the state. Hence their 
simultaneous attack upon these three institutions — the Church, 
government, marriage. 

To make still clearer the fact that the propagation of 
socialist doctrine in itself constitutes a family pest We shall 
show in contrast the standards of that world-wide Faith, which 
numbers over 230,000,000 members, which for centuries has 
stood as an impregnable fortress in the promotion of and in 
the defence of the monogamic family, against which the attacks 
of men and of governments alike have beat in vain. 

From "Catholic Belief," by the Very Rev. Joseph Faa Di 
Bruno, D.D., bearing the Imprimatur of John Cardinal Mc- 
Closkey and Henricus Edwardus, Card. Archiep. Westmonast, 
we quote: 

"Matrimony, or marriage, is the conjugal union of a man and a woman 
who are naturally and legally fit to marry. 

"It has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament, and is a 
bond to be dissolved only by death. 

"The marriage state has many responsibilities, many difficulties to 
meet, many burdens to bear, and many temptations to overcome. 

"It is the teaching of the Church that legitimate matrimony between 
baptized persons can never be a mere contract, but it is also always a sa- 
crament. Though not defined as a point of faith, it is more generally held 
that the ministers of this sacrament are the contracting parties them- 
selves, when by word or outward signs they mutually accept each other as 
husband and wife. 

"The words which the priest pronounces upon the contracting 
parties — 'I join you together in matrimony, in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' are only intended to acknowledge 
and solemnly ratify the sacred engagement just effected by the contracting 
parties. The other prayers which he recites afterwards serve to implore 
more abundant blessings upon the couple just married. 

"Hence it follows that both parties ought to be in a state of grace when 
they contract the sacrament of marriage, for two reasons, 1st, because they 
i'-.-— > icVrps! rvl^inhtrr tljys s^gramentn ^nd secondly, because they receive 
ihc sacrament. 



I^ree Love. 215 

"As the union of Christ with the Church cannot be broken, so the 
bond between husband and wife is indissoluble. There is no cause that 
can justifyyor power upon earth that can authorize the breaking of a legal 
and true marriage-bond between Christians after the marriage has been 
consummated. 

"Separation, except by mutual consent, is forbidden. For grave 
reasons, it is sometimes permitted to the innocent party to live separately, 
but this separation would only improperly be called divorce, as in such 
case the marriage-bond is not broken, and neither party can marry again 
during the lifetime of the other; if ever, therefore, the word divorce is 
used, it is. understood to mean only a separation from bed and board; but 
divorce, properly and strictly so called, in the sense that a divorced person 
may re-marry during the lifetime of his or her respective partner, is for- 
bidden by the Law of God: and there is no reason that can justify, or 
authority on earth that can sanction it. 

"Society in general, and Catholics especially, ought to be most 
thankful to Jesus Christ for having established this inviolable sancity of 
marriage, by which numberless scandals, family strife and miseries, are 
prevented, family happiness more universally secured, and the weaker 
sex and children greatly protected. 

"If in some particular case this law may happen to be burdensome, 
especially to persons who have not been wanting either, in prudence in the 
choice they made, or in justice and kindness towards their partners, this 
hardship to the few is small compared with the immense good derived from 
this law by society at large. 

"The sufferer must not on account of his special grief revolt against 
God, but bear patiently this, like any other trouble, and adore the general 
dispensation of the Creator and Lord of nature." 



We further supply some historic data from the pen of James 
Cardinal Gibbons in "The Faith of our Fathers." 

Matrimony. 

"The Catholic Church, following the light of the Gospel; forbids a 
divorced man to enter into second espousals during the life of his former 
partner. This is the inflexible law she first proclaimed in the face of 
Pagan emperors and people, and which she has ever upheld, in spite of 
the passions and voluptousness of her own rebellious children. 

"Henry VIII, once an obedient son and defender of the Church, 
conceived, in an evil hour, a criminal attachment for Anne Boleyri, a lady 
of the queen's household, whom He desired to marry after being divorced 
from his lawful consort, Catherine of Aragon. But Pope Clement VII, 
whose sanction he solicited, sternly refused to ratify the separation, 
though the Pontiff could have easily foreseen that his determined action 
would involve the Church in persecution, and a whole nation in the un- 
happy schism of its ruler. Had the Pope acquiesced in the repudiation 



216 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

of Catherine, end in the marriage of Anne Boleyn, England would, indeed, 
have been spared to the Church, but the Church herself would have 
surrendered her peerless title of Mistress of Truth. 

"When Napoleon I repudiated his devoted wife, Josephine, and 
married Marie Louise, of Austria, so well assured was he of the fruitless- 
ness of his attempt to obtain from the Holy See the sanction of his divorce 
and subsequent marriage, that he did not even consult the Holy Father 
on the subject. 

"A few years previously, Napoleon appealed to Pius VII to annul 
the marriage which his brother Jerome had contracted with Miss Patterson 
of Baltimore. The Pope sent the following reply to the Emperor: 'Your 
majesty will understand that upon the information thus far received by 
us, it is not in our power to pronounce a sentence of nullity. We cannot 
utter a judgment in opposition to the rules of the Church, and we could 
not, without laying aside those rules, decree the invalidity of a union 
which according to the Word of God, no human power can sunder." 

A sure defence is the Mistress of Truth for the home that 
is founded upon the monogamic family — the bed rock natural 
family ; and a powerful foe to the family is the socialist propa- 
ganda. Kindly pay attention to what the fathers of socialism- 
Marx and Engels — have to say as to what may be anticipated 
about the re-adjustment of sexual relations after the downfall 
of capitalism : 

"We are now approaching a social revolution, in which the old 
economic foundations of monogamy will disappear just as surely as those 
of its complement, prostitution. Monogamy arose through the concentra- 
tion of considerable wealth in one hand — a man's hand — and from the 
endeavor to bequeath this wealth to the children of this man to the 
exclusion of all others. This necessitated monogamy on the woman's, 
but not on the man's part. Hence this monogamy of women in no way 
hindered open or secret polygamy of men. Now the impending social 
revolution will reduce this whole care of inheritance to a minimum by 
changing at least the overwhelming part of permanant and inheritable 
wealth — the means of production — into social property. Since mono- 
gamy was caused by economic conditions, will it disappear when these 
causes are abolished?" ("Origin of the Family," page 91.) 

Is not this sufficiently explicit? That being caused, by 
economic conditions, when the conditions are abolished the 
foundation and support of the family no longer exist. - What 
then is the purpose of the socialist movement if it be not that of 
putting private property and the monogamic family out of 
existence. This two-fold purpose has the further consequence 



Free Love. 217 

involved: -upon coming into possession of the public power 
of these United States the abolition of private property, is not 
only intended to destroy the family life of this great nation, 
but also to destroy the nation itself. Hence, sifted to the bot- 
tom, the issue is without confusion. Every man standing at 
the ballot box must ask himself: Shall I vote, giving the public 
power into the hands of the enemies of my country, or for a 
party standing for civil probity? 

Socialist assumptions are so plainly gratuitous! Their 
questioning so naive! All the rock which their stupendous 
claim has to rest upon is since. Since monogamy was not 
caused by economic conditions it does not change with the change 
in economic conditions. And so consequently it will not be 
abolished however many economic causes (or results either) 
may be abolished by socialists or by anybody else. Being a 
Divine institution, having already withstood the change of the 
three great industrial epochs, it shall last until the human race 
perish from off the face of the earth. This is God's word to 
man, not man's word to men. Christians have right reason, 
natural revelation and God's promise in its favor; the other ill- 
will, absurd premise and wild conclusion for its support, Yet 
this is not saying that pandemonium may not be let loose in 
this country; or that our own Columbia shall reign her thousand 
years. Though it is saying that it were a crime against national 
honor to permit socialism, on the votes of the mob, to swing 
into power. 

Of course it would be correct to say that we are approaching 
a social upheaval in which monogamy shall disappear if the 
socialist parties gain control of the civic power throughout the 
civilized world and should socialist philosophy completely 
dominate men's minds. But God is not mocked! 

The contempt in which marriage is held by socialists is 
displayed in the following low-lived statement, taken from 
"The Origin of the Family" {p. 39)— the book that is shaping 
the thought of hundreds of thousands. For not alone does its 
influence reach the readers of this "classic," but its psychology 
filters down to the rank and file of the movement. We quote : 

"And if strict monogamy is the height of virtue, then the palm belongs 
to the tapeworm that carries a complete male and female sexual apparatus 



218 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

in each of its 50 to 200 sections and passes its whole lifetime in fertilizing 
itself in every one of its sections." 

Surely this is disgustingly suggestive enough to carry its 
abnormal purpose to the most unlettered of the proletarians. 
While its only excuse for being here is that it shall be publicly 
known how far beyond the limits of decent imagery socialists 
carry their propaganda in favor of free love. Certainly it were 
necessary for public safety, that it be known what are the 
instructions, supposedly scientific, that are shaping the senti- 
ments, aye, the convictions of an irresponsible host, gathering in 
larger numbers than ever before. We quote further: 

"With the transformation of the means of production into collective 
property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of society. 
The private household changes to a social industry. The care and educa- 
tion of children becomes a public matter. Society cares equally well for 
all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the 'conse- 
quences' which now forms the essential social factor — moral and economic 
— hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man. 
Will not this be sufficient cause for a gradual rise of a more unconventional 
intercourse of the sexes and a more lenient public opinion regarding virgin 
honor and female shame? And, finally, did we not see that in the modern 
world monogamy and prostitution, though antitheses, are inseparable 
and poles of the same social condition? Can prostitution disappear 
without engulfing at the same time monogamy?". ("Origin of the 
Family,'* pp. 91-92.) 

Engels and Marx, the highest possible authority in socialist 
literature, have let the cat well out of the bag, not even the 
tip of her mangy tail is concealed. And in face of this doctrine, 
officially endorsed and circulated most freely, which outrages 
all the laws of God and man, the Socialist Party Platform has 
the affrontery to declare that: 

" It — socialism— is not concerned with matters of religious 
belief." 

With Catholics marriage is a sacrament, hence a vital 
part of religious belief. And yet, God save the mark! there are 
"Catholic socialists." 

Here then, the fathers of the modern revolution, have set 
forth in plain view what may be expected as the practice of 
the socialist society relative to sex relation, 



Free Love. 219 

1st — When the capital of the country is owned by the 
people collectively the present form of the family ceases. 

This is skilful, it shakes off the moral responsibility of 
abolishing the family by covertly denying moral responsibility. 

2d— The private household, the home, becomes asocial 
industry (whatever that may mean). Being no families, com- 
munal relations take their place. That is to say, a " free family ' ' 
will be in evidence. No domestic love! No mother's love! 
No father's care! 

3d — Society will care for all children, ''legal and illegal." 
"Legal" children evidently refers to the possibility of one 
pair of the human animals breeding more than one child. For 
the destruction of all law relating to the " administration of 
persons" having long since taken place, children cannot rightly 
be said to be legal or illegal. Marriage being sunken in the 
social cesspool, all the words of moral import will have passed 
into oblivion. 

4th — Children will be fatherless. Possibly they may, in 
years to come, be told who their mother was-— but it is not 
likely. 

5th— The consequences which a girl now encounters should 
she enter into illegitimate sex relationship will "be abolished. 
Consequently sexual intercourse will be unconventional— like 
flies which cross themselves in the air. 

6th — Virgin honor and female shame will gradually dis- 
appear and later become extinct phenomena, because of eco- 
nomic progress, don't you know? 

7th— Monogamy and prostitution will disappear. For, 
say Engels and Marx, are they not the result of the same social 
conditions? Certainly not! They mistake the stage of enact- 
ment for the cause of the actions. Monogamy and prostitution 
are both in evidence within the present society. But one ; is 
caused by obedience to the law of God and the other is caused 
by disobedience to Divine law — socialist philosophy to t he- 
contrary notwithstanding. 

8th — Then comes the -negative of the question, put nega- 
tively, of course. Can prostitution disappear without engulf- 
ing monogamy? The meaning is, and it may be brought out 
in Yankee fashion by asking another question, can monogamy 



220 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

disappear without engulfing the distinction which exists between 
it and prostitution? It cannot. When there is" no marriage 
there are no wives; where there are no wives there are no homes; 
when there are no homes there are no families, and this were 
the much contemplated "new society" — the socialist herd. 
Hence of human-animalism it were quite beside the point to 
inquire into its several degrees of sex freedom or for the pre- 
ponderance of the lust of the flesh over that of gold, or even 
for the strongest and longest bond of sex fondness. No doubt, 
the degredation would be so deep that not even the most highly 
erotic mind would be interested in the speculation. Though 
here and now, while the race is kept sane by God-loving and 
law-fearing men and women, socialist imagination, dubbed in- 
vestigation for weight of influence, has given itself a freer rein. 
A "new element" from no-where is to come in to regulate 
mutual fondness : 

"Here a new element becomes active, an element which at best existed 
only in the germ at the time when monogamy developed : individual 
sexlove." ("Originof the Family," p. 92.) 

"Hence the full freedom of marriage can become general only after 
all minor economic considerations, that still exert such a powerful in- 
fluence on the choice of a mate for life, have been removed by the abolition 
of capitalistic production and of the property relations caused by it. 
Then no other motive will remain but mutual fondness." (p. 98.) 

A state of grace is thereafter an anachronism, while the 
word marriage has another significance. It shall not mean the 
foundation of a family; not the mating for life. Though if 
mutual fondness should in any given cases prove the "new 
element" to be strong enough to last, there would, perhaps, 
be no objection to its permanence. Just what words shall 
be substituted for the love of husband and wife, for children 
and of home "mutual fondness" has not yet thrown up on the 
shores of economic determinism. But it is certain that the 
"new element" shall throw women upon the dirt heap, while 
men are still free to wallow in the mire of mutual fondness— of 
sex degredation. 

Words which bring a stench to the nostrils alone suffice to 
paint the sea of corruption which the socialist philosophy, by 
the use of the political power, would launch our ship of state upon. 



Free Love. 221 

Socialist philosophy is a curious phenomenon, it denies 
the limitless-— God — and yet it offers excess* for its liberty is 
without restraint and its lawlessness without limitation. We 
quote: - 

"What we may anticipate about the adjustment of sexual relations 
after the impending downfall of capitalist production is mainly of a 
negative nature and mostly confined to elements that will disappear. 
But what will be added? That will be decided after a new generation 
has come to maturity; a race of men who never in their lives have had 
any occasion for buying with money or other economic means of power 
the surrender of a woman; a race of women who have never had any 
occasion for surrendering to any man for any other reason but love, or 
for refusing to surrender to their lover from fear of economic conse- 
quences. Once such people are in the world, they will not giveamoment's 
thought to what we to-day believe should be their course. They will 
follow their own practice and fashion their own public opinion about 
the individual practice of every person — only this and nothing more." 
("Origin of the Family," p. 109.) 

However anarchism may differ as to its economic theories 
the predicted society of socialism were surely as "free" as 
Emma Goldman herself could paint it. Though it may be 
noted that anarchists never make any pretence that their doc- 
trine is not hostile to religion, while The Worker says that the 
translation of this book of Engels and Marx is "as necessary as 
it is belated ' ' for the propagation of socialist doctrine ; and while 
the ink of this assault upon the sacrament of marriage is still 
wet on its page flourishing its wounded innocence, The Worker 
challenges Bishop Quigley to produce one word of evidence in 
socialist literature hostile to religion. Yet it is not only the 
moral law that must be abrogated to make way for the social 
degeneracy, the state too must be a thing archaic. We quote 
further: 

"However, those peculiarities that were stamped on the face of 
monogamy by its rise through property relations, will decidedly vanish, 
namely, the supremacy of men and the indissolubility of marriage. The 
supremacy of man in marriage is simply the consequence of his economic 
superiority and will fall with the abolition of the latter. 

"The indissolubility of marriage is partly the consequence of economic 
conditions, under which monogamy arose, partly tradition from the time 
where the connection between this economic situation and monogamy, 
not yet clearly understood, was carried to extremes by religion. To-dav 



222 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

it has been perforated a thousand times. If marriage founded on love 
is alone moral, then it follows that mairiage is moral only as long as love 
lasts. The duration of an attack of individual sex love varies considerably 
according to individual disposition, especially in men. A positive cessa- 
tion of fondness or its replacement by a new passionate love makes a 
separation a blessing for both parties and for society. But humanity 
will be spared the useless wading through the mire of a divorce case." 
("Origin of the Family," p. 99.) 

In a most flattering four column review of this book, The 
Worker \ Dec. 21, 1902, uses the above quotation in full. One 
could easily have found these words against religion — for the 
advocacy of free love is most hostile to Christian Faith. Yet, 
here is no martyr to consistency; The Worker is well aware that 
brazen impudence, not truth, is the best maker of socialist 
converts. That it be and be not hostile to religion is the tactical 
course deliberately pursued by socialist propaganda. For 
it is certain that religion still holds sway over a multitude of 
the people who must be reached and converted; so, of course, 
these will not take the third degree at once, only after a slow 
preparation by confusion on vital issues, with an exaggerated 
emphasis and extravagant sympathy placed upon matters of 
economic injustice, which in truth should gravely concern all 
right minded men. This is the course by which time is 
gained to replace confidence in the Ten Commandments with 
a bewildered opinion that Christianity has somehow served 
its day and must now give place to a higher product of evolu- 
tion, which bewilderment finally hardens into socialist dogmas 
that are exactly hostile to right reason, to general experience, 
and to religion. 

Under socialism the indissolubility of marriage will vanish. 
Indeed! How else? For under socialism marriage itself were 
unknown. 

Socialism postulates that marriage and divorce are both 
evolved by economic conditions, except where monogamy 
has been /'carried to extremes by religion." That is to say, 
socialists assert that the safeguarding of the family by religion 
has been an abnormal demonstration. We submit this matter 
to the women of America; and we are sure that they will stand 
with good Queen Katherine, 



Free Love, 223 

With the negative twist given to logic, "socialist minds" 
would show that ecclesiastical law must fall. For love, asserts 
religion, is the basis of marriage. Then to be moral, say these 
logicians, marriage should last only so long as love lasts. But 
the difference is as far as foul black is from pure white in the 
connotation of the word love. Religion would write lust where 
the socialist cult writes love. How long will socialist love last ? 
Why, until "sex fondness" has exhausted its force. "The 
duration of an attack of individual sex love varies considerably 
according to individual disposition. " When the sex flame is 
burnt out "its replacement by a new passionate love makes a 
separation a blessing. " Blessing? A strange word . in the 
mouth of an atheist! A blessing comes by the grace of j God, 
not by the glare of sex flames. It would be more fitting were 
socialists to say that separation stimulates sex depravity,, for 
it gives the next opportunity to indulge a new ''sex love." 
Science will be unhindered by moral responsibility, for "human- 
ity -will be spared the useless wading through the mire of a 
divorce case. " In place of American homes this is the condition 
anticipated by the fathers, adhered to for sixty years by the 
promoters and ardently propagated by the socialist women 
of to-day. An editorial in the Special Woman's Day Edition 
(The New York Call] 2-27-1910}, we quote: 

What Every Woman Ought To Know. 

"Woman, to fight effectively for her freedom, ought to know exactly 
how. the present relations between men and women came into being. 
Never was a great movement so sadly handicapped by historical ignorance 
as is .the woman suffrage movement of to-day. Socialist women have a 
splendid field for educational work in the suffrage camp. The one book 
that contains in small compass 'what every woman ought to know' is Frederic 
Engelsl 'The Origin of the Family.' Every socialist woman should oecome 
a book agent to sell this book.". 

Yet more influential still in spreading as historically correct 
what is not true regarding the origin of the family, are the efforts 
of those socialist women who have a wide reputation with the 
general public. What a vast new field for the intellectual 
propaganda of the vile stuff from socialist pens has not Vida D. 
Scudder opened up by her article Socialism and Sacrifi<# in the 



224 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

Atlantic. The altruists of the country have never been so 
appealed to, so stimulated to imbibe a psychology that is all 
too powerful to be resisted save only by those minds made com- 
petent by the severest intellectual training in the discovery of 
the ground of reason and in the processes of logical thinking. 
How many even of the Atlantic readers are thus equipped? 

Yet more pertinent, perhaps, is the question: shall any of 
the young women at Wellesley (where Miss Scudder is professor 
of history) escape the baleful influence of the deadly hostility of 
socialist literature to the family and to the church? Especially 
when Professor Scudder slides gracefully from radical authors 
well accepted by the acknowledged culture of the country to the 
forceful recommendation of the great chiefs of the modern 
revolution. Yet, however sincerely Miss Scudder's modernism 
is seated in a vivid imagination, and however fluently the words 
of a Christian vocabularly are forced in requisition for the adora- 
tion of that impious thing economic determinism, her work should 
be recognized as potent in the destruction of the body politic. 
For that "holy city of social justice" which these "militant 
spirits" are determined to build shall prove upon the carrying 
out of their socialist principles to be none other than a state 
of bestial humanism. Not the clean, wholesome state of the 
non-moral beasts of the field, but instead, that pestering, fuming, 
sweltering condition which only the fire of earth and the love 
of heaven can cleanse. We quote from the Atlantic (June, 1910) : 

"Tolstoi, Ruskin and the others are on the wrong track, except 
in so far as, being men of their own times, they have half-unconsciously 
been forced to think in terms of reality. Close the books of these gentle- 
men! Open your Engels, your Jaures, your Bebel, and realize with 
refreshment and repose that here at least we are in the presence of minds 
free from sentimentality, and at grip with the actual facts of social pro- 
gress." 

None the less wide is the pernicious influence, however 
good their intentions, of a dozen other women though upon 
different fields. At the Inter-collegiate dinner (as reported 
by The New York Call, Jan. 1, 1911), Mrs. Florence Kelly 

"scored the socialist press for not urging its readers to see to it that 
socialistic books are to be found in every library. There are some 4,000 
libraries, she said, in the United States. They could easily be made to 



Free Love. 225 

buy every important book on socialism. This alone would dispose of 
4,000 copies of every important socialist publication and would be of 
tremendous educational value." 

Of course, Mrs. Kelly is aware that one is counted out by 
advanced-thought, by progressive-circles, save one is more or 
less in sympathy with the socialist movement. And in the 
cultivation of this border land Mrs. Kelly is a past master. If 
the people living on this vast territory were able to discriminate 
between Christian democracy and the proposals of socialism, 
why then, all were safe from the socialist agitator however 
skillful, but unhappily the knowledge of the great Leo is not 
their possession. 

Speaking in Boston, not long since, so great was Mrs. Kelly's 
ardor for the socialization of the domestic industries that she 
was carried so beyond the limits of good judgment as to say that 
she had never yet seen a New England mother, much as they 
are idealized, capable of bringing up her daughters; Mrs. Kelly's 
conclusion being that the state should give domestic training 
in the schools. We must confess to much amazement that the 
entire audience so far forgot the service of their mothers and 
the honor due to them as to applaud this insult put upon the 
home training in favor of a socialistic cook shop, for Hun- 
tington Hall is supposed to gather the most studious audiences 
of New England culture. This is given as a fair example in 
proof that public women not exactly known as belonging to the 
socialist movement are yet its most effective propagandists in 
breaking up the belief in the necessity of maintaining the home. 

The settlement workers, with Jane Addams in the lead, 
although they are taking much pains to create a better material 
environment for the poor, are doing much at the same time to 
create that public sentiment within which free love comes upon 
the scene as a natural topic. So it is that directly by socialists, 
and indirectly as sociological workers, every avenue is worked 
with a zest that is a close counterfeit of genuine religious zeal. 
By persons from all classes, upon all grounds at once, the revolu- 
tionists and their allies are closing in upon the integrity of the 
nation by the advocacy of free love. 

So also it is that the defense of themonogamic — the Christian 
family — should be set up on every available ground by persons 



226 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

from all classes. Of course the- religious defense isprimary; the 
strongest of all. Yet the scientific, the natural, defense is so 
strong that when radically set forth it shall comper assent from 
all minds save those that are perverse. 

This is glorious ground, too, in defense of the sound reason 
inherent in the Sacrament of Marriage, by which Free Love is 
utterly condemned. Because the natural family, the mono- 
gamic family is in itself sufficient to maintain and carry forward 
the race, it is the one only necessary family. As it is the lowest 
terms to which the propagation of the race may be reduced, 
hence all other forms are departures from this basic structure 
of the human race. Consequently as all other forms are de- 
partures from this basic structure they are mixed forms, not the 
pure form, and so by right reason they must be set down as 
lower in order than the monogamic family, which is at once 
the lowest terms to which the race itself can be reduced, and 
at the same time the highest, the perfect type, as nothinr 
can be purer. No man can dispute the fact that one husband, 
one wife and their children present an absolutely unmixed type 
of family. """ 

With this basic type of family the Christian religion- is in 
perfect harmony. Indeed the natural family supernaturairy 
elevated is the family of the Faithful. 

But to those persons who insist that not religion but science 
has the last word to say, here are the facts of natural phenomena. 
They are not to be gainsaid, for necessity, neither more nor less, 
standi with the monogamic family; - 

The monogamic family holds not alone the one impregnable 
fort of science, but also that of philosophy-^-of pure Teason. 
This primary form of the " family is ingrain' in the warp and 
woof of the male and female body, upon the sufficient cause that 
unsupported by any other it is alone able to maintain and carry 
forward the race. It is the competent explanation of a socialist" 
phenomenon that puzzles the academic mind of the utilitarian 
type. Why should some socialists propagate free love as they 
do and still hold out as the ultimate ideal to be realized in the 
far away future the permanent pair? Their philosophy being 
perverse must double upon itself within a sane mind. For the 
reason that nature in her sanity is stronger than the individual's 



Free, Love. 227 

sanity, his mental poise may give way, but God's Providence 
never does. 

Socialism has it that the form of the family changes in 
conformity with the alleged epochal economic structure of 
human society. Yet nature protects her designs by an impact 
upon the consciousness stronger than the theory which is merely 
man made. 

The monogamic family is compelling to the scientific mind, 
however false his philosophy may be, for the simple reason that 
the finite mind cannot create an ideal so pure as the perfect 
design of the Infinite Mind. So it is that God is not mocked ; 
His truth operates with a -strength that false theories have not, 
while its beauty is -triumphantly above. any form that man 
has. made for himself. -The monogamic family is so transcen- 
dently above any possible form that man can imagine, that 
perforce, even men whose practical teachings wreak with the 
filth of. free love, are constrained to relieve her natural sanity 
by _the notion that when the " social organism ' ' shall have 
perfected itself by evolution after evolution, permanent pairing 
shall be realized — no man can guess that time. 

. Yet as it should be ^expected here is a deadly error in asso- 
ciation with truth. . For wisdom is aware that so long as men 
shall live on the face of the earth perfection en masse shall be 
unknown. This is at once the courage and confidence of the 
normal individual. But under the socialist philosophy the 
individual should be powerless, for he cannot live the ideal life 
before the due socialist time which no man knows. While to 
the Christian the ideal life is within the reach of all who will 
discipline themselves to that happy state. 

Aye, God's will is done by individuals not by the mob, only 
as each man of the mob obeys the law. And yet so powerful is 
the influence of social environment upon the character of the 
individual that science instructs and religion commands us to 
work at once for the purity of ourselves and for the purity of 
our environment. 

i ot 



Homeless Children. 

- 

"Look how he laughs and stretches out his arms, 
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine, 
To hail his father : while his little form 
Flutters as wing'd with joy. Talk not of pain ! 
The childless cherubs well might envy thee 
The pleasures of a parent." 

Byron. 

THE children? Yes, poor things, no doubt there shall be a 
measly lot of them under the " new regime," but all shall 
be orphaned. The community is to be the father and mother of 
them all. The home having been absorbed by the " household 
industries,' ' all the infants shall be turned out to grass in the 
pasture on the baby farms. For it should be realized that 
when women have achieved "sex freedom" domestic industry 
shall have been divided up into "social trades." 

As a preparation for this great change from home to the 
social barracks and the infant farm, the children of to-day are 
to be educated in the "Socialist Sunday School." 

Since history was writ it has been recognized that the 
early teachings set the seal to the future character of the man. 
Hence the command, Honor thy father and mother in the 
days of thy youth. Hence also the care with which religious 
principles are instilled into the child's mind by devotedly re- 
ligious parents. Nothing is so important as this. 

By destroying the belief in God, socialism fondly believes 
that it can destroy God, — and the superstition of religion. 
Hence it is requisite, from the socialist point of view, to blot 
out the ground of moral recognition in order to prepare the 
mind for taking hold of socialist philosophy and practice. So 
for the double purpose— first of preventing the children of 
socialists from receiving religious instruction on Sunday, as 
would be somewhat likely to happen, and second, for the pur- 
pose of instilling the materialistic doctrine of socialism into 
the children's minds, socialist Sunday-schools are organized 
throughout the world, 



Homeless Children. 229 

The Glasgow Socialist Sunday-School Union publishes a 
monthly magazine, The Young Socialist. In the Aims and 
Objects the movement sets forth its views: 

"As the sea's tumult affects and moulds the pebbles oa the shore, 
so current conceptions of Society affect the teaching and outlook of those 
not yet beyond the borders of life. The importance of capturing the 
child mind has been recognized by the Churches, and Sunday Schools are 
common all over the country. It is time that socialists also realized the 
far reaching effects of early impressions on the youthful mind, and 
rallied to the work of organizing and spreading socialist Sunday Schools. 
Such schools have been started in various parts of the country. Their 
basis is unsectarian. The teaching given deals with the economic causes 
of present day social evils, while a love of goodness is implanted by all 
reasonable means. The object aimed at is to guide the child's mind and 
activities, so that the socialist convictions may be built up naturally 
and firmly, that there may not be a great deal to unlearn in later life. 

"Socialists should, in the interests of their children, take their full 
part in starting and supporting schools for many reasons. Children are 
taught contrary to the wishes of socialist parents at ordinary Sunday 
Schools, so cannot wisely be sent there. They learn comparatively little 
merely running about and, if taken to meetings of grown-up socialists, 
the lectures are not suited to their years and knowledge. The only way 
out is to encourage, by all means, the growth of socialist Sunday Schools.' ' 

It is certain that if children are taught in socialist Sunday- 
schools, their belief in God shall be nil, and that to unlearn 
the belief in God, gives a vast deal of trouble, as no half-way 
house can be found, for the weaklings to rest within, between 
the two schools of philosophy, which are as old as the hills. 

Like everything else, philosophy has its three dimensions. 
Nor width, nor depth may come before length, if right reason 
shall be set up. So any other order than God first, my eternal 
self second and all things else third, is philosophy out of order 
—thinking on a foundation of chaos. 

It is innocent, to say the least, to parade as unsectarian; 
that Sunday-school whose avowed purpose is to pour into 
children's minds, in diluted doses, the "class-conscious social- 
ist doctrine." The Socialist Sunday-school is a strictly secta- 
rian organization. It is an atheist Sunday-school, and nothing 
but the atheistic doctrine may consistently be taught there. 

The socialists of many cities in this country, taking pat- 
tern after their comrades across the water have been busily 



230 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

engaged in starting these schools. They have been especially 
active during the past two years. Several of the socialist 
papers have what is known as a children's column, for spread- 
ing this work 

The Socialist Sunday-school Union of New York, issued 
a statement which shows plainly that blasphemy is full blown. 
Not any sort of recognition of a creator of the Cosmos is allowed, 
but only a territorial god remains to be attacked. We quote : 

"The aim and purpose of these schools is double, viz. : The destruc- 
tive work of tearing down old superstitious ideas of territorial patriotism, 
fixed ideas and ideals on matters in general and working class in particular, 
and the constructive work of preparing the future citizen for the co-opera- 
tive commonwealth by giving them unbiased, scientific facts concerning 
the development, of society from its primitive condition to its present 
industrial status of civilization.". (The Wage Slave+ Hancock, _Mieh. 
r-1-1909.) 

. - n :: i . ..; 
It may seem difficult to teach these purposes to children, 

but The Little Socialist does not find it so, as this excerpt from 

July, 1909, will show: 

"We should not have any rulers. We should not allow any one to 
govern us. So long as we fear anyone, so long that one will be a bully 
and a tyrant." 

This general order for disobedience to authority— parental, 
civic, -moral- 1 — is followed up in Oct., 1909, by more specific 
instructions. The children should follow the example of the 
Quakers 

"who would not swear or support the government . . . for the flag 
does not stand for justice and freedom for all . -.-'-. -"'-■ 

Editorially, in the same issue, the children are instructed 
to despise and to insult not only the flag, but the President of 
the United States. Also to set up a juvenile court to con- 
demn diplomatic acts; and to speak impudently to their teacher : 

"Taft grasped the Czar of Russia's hand. We hope none of you 
shook hands with Taft. Tell your teacher you despise Taft for being 
friendly to a broody tyrant." .--. 

Certainly a prolific crop of degenerate citizens should 
be expected. Especially when atheism, treason and inso- 
lence are followed up by the history that teaches: 



Homeless Children. 231 

"Washington was a contemptible and unscrupulous liar." (The 
Little Socialist, "Fob. 10, roio.) 

'" • ' : . -: 7 v v ■ •■ ■ -.- \. - ■ - _ 

In a two-column -article, The Worker (3-7-1908), explains 
Why Socialist Sunday-schools are an important part of the 
propaganda and what they should strive to accomplish: 

"There are many men and women to-day who are earnestly and 
fervently patriotic in the bourgeois sense. The Star Spangled Banner 
makes them thrill with emotion. They will shed tears over the story of 
the true-hearted lad who left his sweetheart to obey his country's call, 
and died while trying to save the colors. Every socialist knows that all 
these stories and songs are some of the means that the ruling class uses to 
cultivate a feeling of national patriotism, and that so long as such a feeling 
exists among many people their supremacy is safe. 

"In a socialist school a feeling of international patriotism will be 
aroused. The children will be made to feel that the workingmen of all 
nations are brothers. They have a common enemy — capitalism. They 
have a common aim — its overthrow. 

"Socialist schools should be founded in as many places as possible, 
to counteract the influences of the churches, synagogues, and public schools. 
This is the negative side of the work. More important still is the positive 
side of appealing to the children's heart and imaginations and teaching 
them how to live. Working class children should have working class 
hearts and minds." 

There should be no delusion as to the fact that "Capital- 
ism" as a socialist term stands not for the graft and greed 
that are a disgrace to our civilization, but that Christian civil- 
ization itself is meant by the term. Consequently there is 
to be cultivated in the hearts and minds of the working-class 
those thoughts and those emotions, those words and those 
deeds, best suited to the destruction of the Christian church, 
that the downfall of the present order may be accomplished. 
And although the gates of hell shall not prevail against the 
church militant, God's promise does not extend to the preser- 
vation of this country which our dearly beloved Cardinal con- 
siders 

"one of the most precious heirlooms ever bestowed on mankind down the 
ages and that it is the duty, and should be the delight of every citizen to 
strengthen and perpetuate our government by the observance of its laws 
and by the integrity of his private life. 'Righteousness,' says the Book 
of Proverbs, 'exaltetb a nation, but sin is a reproach to the people". 



232 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

The organization of A Socialist Sunday-school Union in 
connection with the Rand School of New York, has shifted 
the centre of this pernicious activity from Chicago, where it 
was located a decade ago, to our sea-board metropolis. The 
N. Y. State Committee having in charge this division of propa- 
ganda, lays down the qualifications expected of the teachers 
in The Call (Sunday 9-1 8-1 9 10), together with a list of books 
for authorities that the teacher may be sure of that one es- 
sential, — "the true conception of the socialist point of view." 
Kautsky's "Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of 
History" is one of the books especially recommended. We 
present an excerpt from the book that the socialist point of 
view may be seen in contrast to the Ten Commandments: 

"What is specifically human in morality, the moral codes, is subject 
to continual change. This does not prove, all the same, that a class or 
social group can not be immoral; it proves simply that so far at least as 
the moral standards are concerned, there is just as little an absolute 
morality as an absolute immorality. Even the immorality is in this 
respect a relative idea. Only -the. lack of more social impulses and virtues, 
which man has inherited from the social animals, is to be regarded as 
absolute immorality. 

It is thus nonsense to declare particular moral prin- 
ciples of any people or class, which are recognized as such, to be immoral 
simply because they contradict our moral code. Immorality can never 
be more than a deviation from our own moral code, never from a strange 
one." (pp. 192-93.) 

Socialist instruction in its Sunday-school, as elsewhere, be- 
gins without beginning and never arrives anywhere; it merely 
is "going some." The system of going without beginning or 
ending, is made known to the infant mind, in the lesson {Chicago 
Socialist, 7-11-1903), on the Inorganic and Organic Worlds. 
Each living thing is explained as a product of past environment ; 
a part of the first thing remaining a part of the second, with 
something added. Evidently where the first thing came from, 
or where the added part came from, is no concern of anybody. 

Here we find the socialist key with which to unlock their 
atheistic Sunday-school door. The school through whose agency 
the child is to be taught that he owes his existence to past 
environment, that he has been evolved from what Engels calls 
his " fish ancestors. ' ' That probably the pithecanthropus erectus 



Homeless Children. 233 

was his first upright forefather. Hence his environment, — not 
he himself is responsible for his character. Hence, also, some 
day, a long way off, when "economic determinism" shall have 
forced into the hands of the working class the tools of pro- 
duction there will be evolved a "social will," which will be 
"free." Then and not until then shall the individual man be 
morally responsible for his own acts. God is a myth which 
must fade away under the scientific teaching of socialism. There 
is no command upon the socialist Sunday-school scholars to 
love God; to honor and obey their parents. No command to 
walk humbly before God and to keep His laws. 

Consequently socialist Sunday-school teaching is in di- 
rect contradiction with right reason, as may be illustrated by 
its contrast with a lesson from the Catechism : 

"Q. WHO MADE THE WORLD? 

A. God made the world. 

Q. WHO IS GOD? 

A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all 
things. 

Q. WHAT IS MAN? 

A. Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and 
made to the image and likeness of God. 

Q. IS THIS LIKENESS IN THE BODY OR IN THE 
SOUL? 

A. This likeness is chiefly in the soul. 

Q. HOW IS THE SOUL LIKE TO GOD? 

A. The soul is like God because it is a spirit that will never 
die, and has understanding and free will. 

Q. WHY DID GOD MAKE YOU? 

A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to 
serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever 
in the next. 

Q. OF WHICH MUST WE TAKE MORE CARE, OUR 
SOUL OR OUR BODY? 

A. We must take more care of our soul than of our body. 

Q. WHY MUST WE TAKE MORE CARE OF OUR 
SOUL THAN OF OUR BODY? 



234 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

A. We must take more care of our soul than of our body, 
because in losing our soul we lose God and everlasting hap- 
piness. 

Q. WHAT MUST WE DO TO SAVE OUR SOULS? 

A. To save our souls we must worship God by faith, 
hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope, in 
Him, and love Him with all our heart." 

Just imagine the effect of this grand simplicity upon the 
mind of the child as compared with the hyperbole of the so- 
cialist lesson : 

"On the Nature of Life" (Chicago Socialist, 7-4-1903). 

"1. The extent of scientific knowledge of the origin 
of life. 

2. In the lowest forms of life it is difficult to distinguish 
between plant and animal. For example we read in biology 
of one of these simplest forms of life called meridion circulare, 
which examined under a powerful microscope, is seen to mul- 
tiply by dividing itself; each part developing into a new indi- 
vidual. 

- - 

3. Lowest form of life consists of one cell, hence because 
it is made up of a single physiological cell it is called unicellular. 

In animal life these unicellular organisms are called pro- 
tozoa, in plant life they are known as protophyta. As far as 
unicellular organisms are concerned whatever is true of the 
growth and development of protozoa is true of protophyta. 

4. A protozoon like cells in general has a nucleus and 
it multiplies by a process of discontinuous growth; that is, the 
cells divide and the separate parts start, as distinct physiologi- 
cal units. --.--._ *ri.i _:_■; 

5. A gradual differentiation takes place and multicellu- 
lar organisms appear, called; in animal life metazoa, in plant 
life metaphyta. 

6. Multicellular organisms consist of a plurality of physio- 
logical cells modified to subserve different functions in the 
economy of the plant or animal. 

Central thought — Life means change — change of environ- 
ment into things to support life." 



Homeless Children. 235 

When all is said, it has been said that life has no origin, 
and no law. Change occupies the place in the socialist mind 
that the Ten Commandments occupy in the normal mind. 
With no original design to be worked out, life is incompetent 
to draw out one's energies; without offence talents may be hid 
in a napkin. Without personal initiative or personal responsi- 
bility, life is going at a thundering speed to any old place at all. 
Like the man being run away with, down hill, the race can do 
but One thing— go. 

"Why don't you jump off?" 

" You fool! All I can do is to hold on." 

It must not be thought that these instructors are not able 
to iring' their monist creed down to the interest of the child. 
The committee having in charge the lessons for children from 
six to eight years have been skillful enough in their descrip- 
tion of the "primitive'* man to fix the child's attention upon 
false ground and to set his mind going in the wrong direction. 
We quote from The Sunday Call (10-30-19 10) : 

"He is described as being of medium height, strong-limbed and deep- 
chested. Down each arm from shoulder to elbow, and elbow to wrist, 
ran a strip of short dark hair ; the legs were similarly muscular and hairy. 
The fingers and thumbs were almost the same length. The toes were as 
usable as the fingers. The eyes were small and deeply set beneath pro- 
truding brows, the nose was broad and_ flat, the mouth wide, the chin firm 
and well defined, the teeth strong." 

The lessons ingeniously go on step by step telling how it 
was that the curiosity of the "tree-people" led them at last to 
utilize the fire which the lightning struck in the forest. At 
first Kaa thought the fire a beast, then seeing that beasts were 
afraid of fire, Kaa tended the fire to keep the beasts away. 
After which the ' 'tree men" came down and lived on the earth. 

So it was not in God's providence that the home was es- 
tablished, but the mere phenomena of nature that made the 
home possible. We quote : 

"Step IV. — Ask the children to make drawings of Kaa and the fire 
beast during the week. Ask them to try and find out how people 
used to make fire before we had matches. 

Ask them if they can find out from any books in the library any stories 
cf how men first got fire.", 



236 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

As demand creates supply, our public libraries are likely 
to be well stocked with the books wanted. 

The whole tale of hanging a millstone about the necks of 
the little ones is told in the 

Hints to the Teacher. 

"Impress upon the children that all things necessary to life„come 
originally from the earth, or from the land. 

Lesson 1. — Talk about the tree dwellers. How they got their food. 
Describe their life, also the life of the cave dwellers. Show how they 
found everything for their support on the earth. Say something about 
the animals living on the earth at this time. Describe the natural beauties 
of the earth. Name the minerals, also vegetables and the fish, and show 
that they are taken from the wonderful storehouse of the earth. Show 
that food, clothing and shelter come from the earth." 

Although we are commanded to remember the Sabbath- 
day and keep it holy, there is not one word about Almighty 
God — about our dear Lord as the Good Shepherd — about the 
Divine Fire that lights up the mind, as the forest fire lights up 
the mountain tops, in all the lesson. The "feast of the Sun" 
is the nearest suggestion of worship there is to be found in 
the second lesson. While the natural desire for praise and 
prayer, together with the culture of a Christian environment, 
is to be warped and dwarfed by mere nature- worship. In 
the place of religion, of prayer and praise to God, there is sub- 
stituted Merry Sunshine singing : 

"Good morning, merry sunshine, 

How did you wake so soon? 
You've scared the little stars away, 

And shined away the moon. 
I saw you go to sleep last night, 

Before I ceased my playing, 
How did you get way over there, 

And where have you been staying?" 

Of course if these defrauded little ones could realize that 
their Sunday-school teaching is but the prelude to the time 
when Homeless Children would be the rule, sunshine singing 
would not make them so merry. 

It were idle to fancy that these Sunday-school teachers are 
not fully determined upon undermining the Christian religion 



Homeless Children. 237 

as a preparation for the "new order." Their caution to them- 
selves is that : 

"We should ever bear in mind that we must do a certain amount of 
destructive work preparatory to the building for new ethical and industrial 
teachings.". 

The development of this phase of socialism goes on apace. 
Recently (The Call, 4-1 5-1 9 11), fifty socialist Sunday-school 
teachers of Greater New York met at an informal dinner. Its 
declared object was as follows : 

"'To form a strong compact organization prepared to formulate its 
plans in such a manner as to insure the support and sympathy of socialists 
everywhere.' Its declared intention is to prepare children for the com- 
ing social order by a definite method." 

Consequently something " better ," more sharply in re- 
sistance to Christianity, may soon be expected for the socialist 
Sunday-schools. 

No, it were greatly amiss to rest secure in the thought that 
after all not so many children are reached by this blighting in- 
fluence. First because of the restless energy with which the 
work is- carried on it permeates everywhere; and secondly be- 
cause besides the hundreds of tributary organizations avowedly 
teaching pantheism, monism and whatnot, there is the godless 
influence of our own public schools, where children are not alone 
bereft of religious instruction, for they are spiritually stricken 
with a plethora of animalism giving a false tone to science and 
a false color to history. Even the kindergarten is not free 
from the gaunt hand of this religious famine, so nicely gloved 
with a gleeful nature worship,— for Froebel's instruction rests 
upon only one of the pillars of knowledge, Induction and 
deduction form the ladder of the ascending and descending angels, 
not that of induction only. 

Moreover, socialists are putting forward most strenuous 
efforts to capture the public school boards, that they may 
augment those very-anti -religious influences which even the 
Protestant public are beginning to question. In not a few 
cities and towns socialists have captured the majority of the 
committee; and their psychology is strongly felt upon many 
other boards. 



2^8 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

With the school boards tinder socialist control, the chil- 
dren are to be taught that the industrial conflict between the 
capitalist and the working class is "irreconcilable." That 
they must with the "spirit of class-consciousness" (which 
logically leads to class hatred) oppose the capitalist class and 
overthrow them, thereby revolutionizing the existing social 
order. 

In all soberness of thought, since life is a frenzy, accord- 
ing to socialist teaching, we submit to the judgment of Ameri- 
can fathers and mothers who are responsible for the education 
given to their children it is a serious question. 

However deeply we may resent the irreligious theories 
and methods that are popular to-day, there is to be found no 
sanity in the views of the would-be-socialist teachers. We 
quote: 

"So present-day society is as helpless and aimless in regard to the 
question of education as it is in regard to all other questions. What 
methods, then, does it resort to? It calls for punishment and preaches 
religion; that is, it preaches submissiveness and contentment to those 
who are far too submissive and contented already ; it teaches abstinence, 
where poverty compels people to abstain from the very necessities of life. 
They who brutally rebel against this state of affairs are placed in so-called 
'reformatories' that are generally controlled by religious influences. That 
is the limit of the pedagogical wisdom of our society." (Bebel's ' 'Woman,' ' 
pages 450-5 1 .) 

With atheism as his declared religion, how : should Bebel, 
with the light of his reason so darkened, be expected to have 
the conviction that religion is the one only scientific founda- 
tion upon which to build a system of education; or to have 
the knowledge that because of its having been injured the 
one way to restore the body politic to good health, is to "Re- 
store all things in Christ." 

Nor should it cause surprise that Bebel's prophecy were 
as wanting in charity as his criticism of the present day edu- 
cation. We quote again from "Woman" (p. 443) : 

"The socialist system of education will be purified and improved, 
just like the system of production. Many antiquated, superfluous 
methods and subjects, which now only serve to hamper the child's mental 
and physical development, will be dropped. The knowledge of natural 
things, adapted to the child's understanding, will incite a far greater 



Homeless Children. 239 

desire for study than a system of education where one subject conflicts 
with and contradicts another ; for instance instruction as taught by the 
Bible, and, on the other, as taught by science and natural history." 

Just as though it were a choice between the Bible and 
natural history or science. There is no possible conflict be- 
tween, truth and truth. If one shall find an apparent or an 
actual conflict, he must be sure that the fault is not with the 
Bible, though it may be with his individual interpretation of 
it. Or on the other hand that science as taught is not science 
but error, or again, that the alleged history is not a correct 
report of the doings of man. In the whole range of human 
experience, not a case of conflict has been substantiated, though 
many are assumed by men illy equipped for the task of judging. 

Yet after all it is false opinion when translated into bad 
conduct that is most telling in the despoliation of the race. We 
have shown that there is no foundation for right thinking in so- 
cialism ; no place where religion is taught that socialists would not 
enter to destroy. And we have shown that socialists intend 
to practice what they preach, though we have done with 
the cumulative testimony on this point. So the question is 
imperative: Are these seducers of sex virtues to be trusted 
with the teaching of the children? 

American fathers and mothers — though we might address 
those of the whole world for that matter — we ask you to con- 
sider what socialists think fit training in virtue for your chil- 
dren. We quote from an author of whom the International 
Socialist Review (Dec, 1902), says: 

"He faces bravely the questions that prudes of both sexes shrink 
from, and he offers a solution that deserves the attention of the 
ablest leaders of popular thought." 

That author is Edward Carpenter who, in " Love's Coming- 
of-Age" (p. 100), has this to say: 

... "Each youth or girl should personally see enough of the other sex, 
at an early period, to be able to form some kind of judgment of his or her 
relation to that sex and to sex-matters generally. 

41 . . . The doing away with the absurd superstition that 
because Corydon and Phyllis happen to kiss each other sitting on a gate, 
therefore they must live together all their lives, would soon mend matters 
considerably. Nor would a reasonable familiarity of this land between 
the sexes in youth necessarily mean an increase of casual or clandestine 



240 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

sex-relations. But even if casualties did occur they would not be the 
fatal and unpardonable sins that they now— at least for girls— are con- 
sidered to be. Though the recognition of anything like common pre- 
matrimonial sex-intercourse would probably be foreign to the temper of 
a northern nation; yet it is open to question whether society here, in its 
mortal and fetichistic dread of the thing, has not, by keeping the young 
of both sexes in ignorance and darkness and seclusion from each other, 
created worse ills and suffering than it has prevented, and whether, by 
giving sexual acts so feverish an importance, it has not intensified the 
particular evil that it dreaded, rather than abated it. 

*'In both man and woman ... we find a distinct tendency 
towards the formation of this double unit of wedded life (I hardly like 
to use the word monogamy on account of its sad associations) — and 
while we do not want to stamp such natural unions with any false irre- 
vocability or dogmatic exclusiveness, what we do want is a recognition 
to-day of the tendency to their formation as a natural fact, independent 
of any artificial laws, 

"It might not be so very difficult to get quite young people to under- 
stand this — to understand that even though they may have to contend 
with some superfluity of passion in early years, yet that the .most deeply- 
rooted desire within them will probably in the end point to a permanent 
union with one mate ; and that towards the end they must be prepared 
to use self-control against the aimless straying of their passions, and 
patience and tenderness towards the realization of the union when its 
time comes. Probably most youths and girls, at the age of romance, 
would easily appreciate this position ; and it would bring to them a much 
more effective and natural idea of the sacredness of marriage than they 
ever get from the artificial thunder of the Church and the State on the 
subject." (Page 97). 

Could anything be more informing of the fact that what 
Mr. Carpenter really stands in need of is the teaching of the 
Catholic Church on matrimony? Though by his fling at the 
"artificial thunder of the church," he confesses his ignorance 
to be sufficient enlightenment on this scientific subject of which 
Holy Mother Church alone is the complete Mistress. 

Comment seems hardly necessary when the issue is so clear 
between virtue and vice. So clear before one's view is the 
parting of the ways — one towards happiness and holiness — 
the other towards misery and corruption. Which would you 
choose, parents of this great nation, that your children be 
given the knowledge of chaste conduct to meet temptation 
when the high blood of youth is set in motion by sex attraction ? 
Or the let-alone-policy which relies upon familiarity of the 



Homeless Children. 241 

sexes at an early age to inform them as to fitting sex conduct ? 
Please to remember that under socialism there will be no re- 
ligious instruction to give them at once high idealism and 
self discipline. Can you rely upon "sex fondness" and free 
intercourse to give your girls and boys the opinion that a " per- 
manent union with one mate" is desirable, although behind it 
. a dozen broken fancies with causalties may live to haunt that 
"permanent union" with their consequences, all the days of 
their lives. 

In " The Encyclopedia of Social Reform," (p. 1135) W. D. P. 
Bliss quotes Gabriel Deville, a French authority, who is of inter- 
national standing, as follows : 

" Marriage is a regulation of property. . . . When property is 
transformed, and only after that transformation, marriage will lose its 
reason for existence, and boys and girls may then freely and without fear 
of censure, listen to the wants and promptings of their nature. . . . 
The support of the children will no longer depend upon the chance of birth. 
Like their instruction, it will become a charge of society. There will be 
no room for prostitution or for marriage, which is in sum nothing more 
than prostitution before the mayor." 

Great as this Frenchman's authority is, its weight is that 
of a feather when measured by that of " the greatest political 
document ever issued." The Declaration of Independence 
will kindly get right down on its knees while we introduce the 
testimony of the "Communist Manifesto." We know that it 
speaks with undisputed authority upon all socialist questions, 
but what shall be its importance just 1,089 years from now? 
In his "Studies in Literature" (The Call, 6-26-1910), the 
Reverend Roland D. Sawyer has told the world : 

"First comes the 'Communist Manifesto.' This book is still the classic 
expression of socialism. I believe it always will be. At any rate, the 
man living in 3000 A. D., and wanting to know something about the 
nineteenth century, will want this book." 

That being so, it were the crassest of ignorance in any 
man to-day not to know what the "Communist Manifesto" 
says upon the subject of children. We set it down for the in- 
formation of those already wise to whom its negative tongue 
shall not be over difficult of comprehension : 



242 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children 
by their parents ? To this crime we plead guilty. 

"But, you will say, we destroy 'the most hallowed of relations/when 
we replace home education by social." 

"The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about 
the hallowed Co-relation of parent and child become all the more dis- 
gusting, as, by the action of modern industry, all family ties among the 
proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple 
articles of commerce and instruments of labor." 

As on all other subjects, so on that of children the ''Com- 
munist Manifesto" shows a good specimen of the negative 
mode of the defense of its own nefarious intent, and the dispro- 
portion in which the socialist mind sees all things. In. these 
regards it should be quite likely to remain the "classic expres- 
sion" of ill-balanced thought up to the year 3000. 

The socialist method is not to prove its own case, but to 
throw off the impulse towards the defense of civil society by 
exaggerating the evils which are deplored and should be 
remedied. There is no limit to its effrontry. The holy re- 
lationship of parents and children is called "bourgeois clap- 
trap," while the thing condemned is the very thing that it 
would make universal. 

If now industrial relationships of employer and employee 
are so hard as to tear asunder family ties, socialism proposes a 
scheme of life in which there shall be no family ties to tear 
asunder. Its cure is extinction. 

It is true that some parents through greed, drunkenness or 
irreligion, exploit their children, but is this the rule? Have the 
great mass of mothers and fathers lost their love for their chil- 
dren or their sense of obligation to them? Certainly not! The 
sacrifice and devotion of parents, high and low, shame the ill 
conclusion. It is too true, one of the crimes of modern industry 
is that it employs thousands of children in the mines, the mills 
and factories, though this evil is greatly on the wane. And 
it is too true that some parents, as well as employers are ready 
to sacrifice their children to the greed of Moloch. But the 
conclusion that "all" family ties are thus torn asunder among 
the "proletarians," is a far-stretched falsity of socialist reason- 
ing of which a German friend once said "it rymes vel aber it 
dond reason." -_._. 



Homeless Children. 243 

But what remedy is offered to stop the exploitation of 
children by their parents? Certainly not the cultivation of 
the truth that God requires at the hands of parents the good 
care of his little ones, for socialism would have the communities' 
children educated under the factory system. It would de- 
prive them of their natural association— home influence— the 
love and care of their father and mother. It would substi- 
tute institutionalism for home discipline and destroy forever 
love, duty and obedience together with the family altar and 
hearthstone. Truly fathers and mothers would do better to 
throw^ their children to the protection of the wolves than to 
place them in the hands of "an administration of things" which 
seeks to convert the home into a "social industry," the right- 
ful authority of government into despotism and the belief in 
God into a myth. 

The "Manifesto" strikes a blow at children from another 
quarter. It declares for the abolition of all right of inheritance, 
for the breaking down of all lines of ancestral lineage. With 
homes destroyed and inheritance abolished, there would come 
an end to the knowledge of everybody's grandfather in short 
order. So from whatsoever point of view, there comes good 
evidence that socialists aim to break down all traces of family 
life. H. M. Hyndman, who follows the "Manifesto" style of 
reasoning, say st 



'.'Marriage for life and responsibility of the parents for the children born 
in wedlock, is almost at an end even now .'.'". . and must result in a 
widely extended communism." ("Historical Basis of Socialism," page 453.) 

Like all other international socialist leaders, Mr. Hynd- 
man sees the coming of his desire, the evolution towards the 
revolution, not in fact the cessation of parental responsibility, 
unless the day of doom is near at hand. If, indeed, socialists 
were about to take the seats of power in all the world, then 
the doom of the race might well be sealed. But every man 
may know that so long as the world stands the Church shall 
stand, and so long as the Church militant is on earth, the 
family is safe within the true Fold. Neither is there a shadov.' 
of doubt but that private property — in homes, in lands, in 
lucrative business — shall be handed down to generation after 



244 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

generation long years after this nest of heresies has been laid 
low. Yet this is not saying that there is not arduous work to 
be done by all lovers of their country to root out the abuses 
upon which socialism waxes strong, together with the pest 
itself. 

The socialist poet, Morris, and his philosophic comrade, 
Bax ("Socialism; Its Growth and Outcome," p. 225), propose 
to confer full citizenship upon entirely helpless and non -re- 
sponsible persons, regardless of common humanity, which can 
insist upon nothing less than that infants shall be fostered by 
their parents, or at least protected by the state. We quote: 

"Property in children would cease to exist, and every infant that 
came into the world would be born into full citizenship, and would enjoy 
all the advantages, whatever the conduct of its parents might be." 

- 

What clap-trap is this? How may infants be born into 
citizenship? Citizenship implies manhood,- — not the immature 
state of childhood. It implies rights and the power to enforce 
one's rights. How may infants lodged in the " household in- 
dustry" protect their rights even of socialist citizenship? The 
child's rights as a member of civil society are necessarily recog- 
nized and also protected by its parents or guardians, or by the 
agencies of the state until such time as it shall have attained 
its majority. And until it shall have arrived at the age where 
its five senses shall perfectly co-ordinate, it may not be- said to 
reason in the least as to its own rights; and as for its duties, 
strictly speaking, it has none. filing rightly non-responsible 
for its own acts, it is justly subject to the authority of its parents, 
who on their part are not to be excused from their three-fold 
duty- — to God, to their children and to society. Not a little, 
but a lot of wholesome understanding on this score would pro- 
tect the children of socialists, and others, from the worse than; 
nonsense to which their little ones are subjected by being 
" reasoned " with when they should be taught that most salutary 
virtue of obedience to rightful- authority; 

Big talk which has a pleasing sound, but no sense, is a 
speciality with socialist philosophy. God protect us from the 
"household industry" and the "full citizenship," which social- 
ism would thrust children into. We are confident that the 



Homeless Children. 245 

poorest of good mothers under this "capitalist system" would 
prefer their scanty home with the control of their infants to 
the seductive offers of "full citizenship" for their infants. 

To the sincere student it should be plain enough that to 
the task of making woman "free," is joined that of making 
children homeless. For these doctrinaires show that they 
realize that there is -a co-relation of customs and laws which 
lock the marriage bond for life, while passing down the family 
from generation to generation. No important phase of the 
matter is left untouched by these sacrilegious and unreasonable 
minds. We quote from Bebel ("Woman," p. 470): 

"Compulsory marriage is the normal marriage to bourgeois society. 
It is the only 'moral' union of the sexes; any other sexual union is 
'immoral.' Bourgeois marriage is, . , ■ . the result of bourgeois 
relations. Closely connected with private property and the right of 
inheritance, it is contracted to obtain 'legitimate' children. Under the 
pressure of social conditions it is forced also upon those who have nothing 
to bequeath. It becomes a social law, the violation of which is punished 
by the state, by imprisonment of the men or women who have committed 
adultery and have become divorced. 

"But in socialistic society there will be nothing to bequeath, unless 
house furnishings and personal belongings should be regarded as heredi- 
tary portions ; so the modern form of marriage becomes untenable from 
this point of view also. This also settles the question of inheritance, 
which socialism will not need to abolish. Where there is no private 
property, there can be no right of inheritance. So woman will be free, 
and the children she may have will not impair her freedom, they will only 
increase her pleasure in life/' . 

Of course, if " freedom" means to be stripped of all that the 
normal wife and mother holds most dear — the privilege of 
making a happy home for her husband, of being surrounded with 
his children— why then woman is indeed to be freed under so- 
cialism. Certainly her "freedom" could not be impaired, as 
she shall have no home, and her children shall be brought up 
on the community bottle in the infants' department of the 
administration of the industries. 

It may be surmised that Bebel has no moral vision — no 
spiritual insight — to disturb his scheme of defrauding children 
of the right to the wealth earned by their fathers. Divine 
providence plays no part in his decisions, for his theory of the 



246 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

action of the class-struggle, over which the god, fatalism, pre- 
sides, claims his entire attention. 

No less confident are Engels and Marx as to the action of 
blind force : 

"Monogamy arose through the concentration of considerable wealth 
in one hand — a man's hand— and from the endeavor to bequeath this 
wealth to the children of this man to the exclusion of all others . . 
Now^ the impending social revolution will reduce this whole care of in- 
heritance to a minimum." ("Origin of the Family.") 

Although Kautsky recognizes that the Church must be 
put Out of the way before the fell deed of stripping children of 
their father's name and property shall be in. vogue, it seems a 
very simple task to him also to get rid of " inheritance M . by 
" the expropriation of the expropriators." "The Socialist 
Majority would make the State completely independent of the 
Church and abolish all rights of inheritance." ("The Social 
Revolution," p. 107.) - 

So the leaders of to-day are exactly at one with the pro- 
gram of '48, which declared for the "Abolition of all inheri- 
tance." 

It is so easy for talkers to talk! In this case as in all their 
other shameful proposals the rights of children inherent in the 
constitution of civil society go not down before their blatant 
words nor their miscreant deeds. The right of inheritance lying 
at the base of society is safe, though sporadically here or there 
men might be, by a socialist majority, prevented from leaving 
their property to their children. 

To make it clear, that if socialist proposals were translated 
into practice, the result would be a nation of fatherless and 
homeless children; and at once to set down the natural relation 
of children as members of society, briefly and with full force, we 
quote an entire paragraph from that luminous document, The 
Encyclical Letter on the "Condition of Labor," by Pope Leo 
XIII: 

The State may not Abolish nor Absorb Paternal Rights. 

"The idea, then, that the civil government should, at its own dis- 
cretion, penetrate and pervade the family and the household, is a great 
and pernicious mistake. True, if a family finds itself in great difficulty, 



Homeless Children. 247 

utterly friendless, and without prospect of. help, it is right that extreme 
necessity be met by public aid ; for each family is a part of the common- 
wealth. In like manner, if within the. walls of the household there occur 
grave disturbance of mutual rights, the public power must interfere to 
force each party to give the other what is due ; for this is not to rob citizens 
of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them. 
But the rulers of the State must go no further : nature bids them stop here. 
Paternal authority can neither be abolished by the State nor absorbed ; 
for it has the same source as human life itself; 'the child belongs to the 
father,' and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's personality ; and, 
to speak with strictness, the child takes its place in civil society not in 
its own right, but in its quality as a member of the family in which it is 
begotten. And it is for the very reason that 'the child belongs to the 
father,' that, as St. Thomas of Aquin says, before it attains the use of free - 
will, it is in the power and care of its parents. The socialists, therefore, 
in setting aside the parent and introducing the providence of the State, 
act agamst natural jttstice, and threaten the very existence of family life." 

If for no other reasons the calm strength of these glorious 
words should be powerful enough to arrest the attention and 
to hold the assent of the sincere mind. When the commonsense 
of the great Pontiff is contrasted with the socialist assertions, 
dubbed science, the argument is so clear and so strong that 
nothing save a perverse will could choose against the home, which 
manifests a condition of natural justice to the child. We give 
here an example of ingenious depravity from the "Origin of 
the Family" (p. 91), which pretentiously proposes a better life for 
children, but which on its very vicious face proves its intent to 
rob them of their Christian birthright in the interest of "sex- 
fondness:" 

"With the transformation of the means of production into collective 
property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of 
society. The private household becomes a social industry. Care and 
education of the children becomes a public matter. Society cares equally 
well for all children, legal or illegal." 

Under such a regime, of desolation as socialism presents 
either mothers would pine and die for the want of their children, 
or the love of mothers for their children must come to an end. 
Or shall one paint the revolting scene where socialist females 
are so wrapped up in pluming their feathers for the changing 
sex pleasures that children will be gladly passed over to the 
" social industry. ' ' As did Rousseau pass over, one after another y 



a4$ Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 



his five illegitimate children to the Foundlings' Hospital. Yes, 
''sex fondness" may breed children like rabbits, for they may 
be thrown upon the "social industry" for motherly affection and 
fatherly care. 

William Morris has portrayed the ideal woman under "the 
collective ownership of the means of production and distribu- 
tion. " 

In "News From Nowhere," Clara, the socialist mother, 
"got it into her head that she was in love with someone else." 

After a year had gone by, and this flame burnt out, she 
took it into her head to return to Dick, her one "true" love. 

What about the ideal life of the children of adulterous 
Clara? Why, of course with lust in the place of parental love, 
what rights should children have under the new society but 
those fantastical? Their rights are those of the infant citizen 
with nobody interested to enforce them and their joys are 
in proportion to their helplessness. But why thrust in so 
troublesome a question? Women are" free," if children are 
homeless. 

Though as it has been presented by Morris, and who if 
not a poet should have the fine feeling for dealing with it, we 
may know the argument in defense of the wholesale cruelty 
contemplated towards the children of the ideal society. 

As against the opinion that William Morris was in his 
ideal an anarchist not properly a socialist, the editor of The Com- 
rade (March, 1903), comes to the rescue of his late poet-com- 
rade's reputation. A letter from Morris to a friend is pub- 
lished which shows more than The Comrade intended, namely, 
as regards their attitude upon sex and family relationship, so- 
cialism and anarchism are as like as two peas. 

"My dear Shurman: I believe I shall be about on the 28th. I shall 
be pleased to see you at my house if you can come; but let me have 
notice. As to the matter of education, it is after all a difficult one to 
settle, until people's ideas of the family are much changed; but in the 
meantime here is the problem : How is it possible to protect the im- 
mature citizen from the whims of his parents ? Are they to be left free to 
starve his body or warp his mind by all sorts of nonsense, if not, how are 
they to be restrained? You see that one supposes in a reasonable com- 
munity that experience will have taught the community some wisdom 
in such matters; but the parents may, and probably will, lack this ex- 



■ 



Homeless Children. 249 



perience. Well, then., hasn't the young citizen a right to claim his share 
of the advantages which the community has evolved? Must he be under 
the tyranny "of two accidental persons? At present the law says yes, 
which means that the young citizen is the property of the two accidental 
persons. 

"Putting myself in the position of the immature citizen, I protest 
against this unfairness. As for myself/being the child of rich persons, 
it did not weigh heavily on me, because my parents did as all right people 
do, shook off the responsibility of my education as soon as they could; 
handing me over first to nurses, then to grooms and gardeners, and then 
to a school — a boy farm I should say. In one way or another I learned 
chiefly one thing from all these— rebellion, to wit. That was good; but, 
look you, if my parents had been poorer and had had more character they 
would have probably committed the fatal mistake of trying to educate me. 
I have seen the sad effects of this with the children of some of my friends. 

"On the whole, experience has shown me that the parents are the 
wnfittest persons to educate a child; and I entirely deny their right to do 
so, because that would interfere with the right of the child as a member 
of the community from its birth to enjoy all the advantages which the 
community can give it. Of course, so far as grown people are concerned 
I quite agree with your view of complete freedom to teach anything that 
any one will listen to. But for children I feel that they have as much need 
for the revolution as the proletarians have. As to the woman matter, 
I do not think Bax puts it unreasonably in his article, though I have heard 
him exaggerate that in talk and have often fallen foul of him. By the 
way, you must try to write something for us. Let me know what you 
think of it. 

"Mind you, I don't think this change in the family (or in religion) 
can be done by force. It is a matter of opinion and must come of the opin- 
ion of people free economically. I rely on the stomach for bringing it 
about. 

Yours fraternally, 

William Morris." 

Morris, no doubt, set up a model argument that parents 
are the "wwfittest" persons to educate a child, for the "young 
citizen's" rights to be deprived of his home is quite commonly 
argued in his own chaotic fashion. Perhaps it furnished the 
inspiration with which Mrs. Charlotte Perkins-Stetson-Gilman 
attacks home training in favor of the socialistic school. 

It certainly were a long step towards degrading the home. 
When the children are taught home industries in the public 
schools, the mothers of those two children of quality, not of 
course, the mothers with a normal family of "quantity," would 



250 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

have nothing much to do. They could then all together aban- 
don home duties, and make themselves "equal" with men 
by working in the shops. With stomachs full of " economic 
freedom "the opinions necessary to the re-entrance of the whole 
female sex into the public industries might be rapidly spread, 
for it shall be granted, we think, that such monstrous opinions 
as Morris, Marx, Engels and all the other socialist leaders of 
"universal minds" rely upon for bringing about the new so- 
ciety would be common. At any rate, many of the "young 
citizens" would have acquired their right to be homeless chil- 
dren before the time were fully due. 

With the vividness of the poet, the socialist doctrine as 
it regards children, Morris brings out. His letter, too, shows 
mere animality as the basis of their hope. The animal is to 
be full-fed, as then he will be good-natured and so an agreeable 
companion. This is the whole story, and it is well told. And 
when the perfection of the animal man is clearly seen to be the 
be-all and end-all of socialism, it will become sharply distinct 
from that desirable human progress by which the human soul 
makes its journey back to God, and too, from the aims of a useful 
life here and now. Common experience points out that the 
line of least resistance is not the best way to build character, 
for the great majority of our most useful public men are. not 
rich men's sons. Besides, Faith points out that the heaviest 
burdens become light and that the roughest road is a glorious 
way in the service of Christ. With what poverty of experience 
and with what puerility of understanding then does William 
Thurston Brown in "Socialist Spirit" (May, 1902), exclaim: 

"Where is there a minister in good standing to-day who has a faith 
at all comparable with that of William Morris?'' 

" / ~ " .:: " ' . : : . \. • I - ■ 

At all events there are some ministers in such good stand- 
ing in the Socialist Party and in such bad standing with right - 
reason that they consciously or non -consciously advocate the 
passing away, into its higher form, of the monogamic family; 
and so lend their weight to the Opinion that parents are the 
"un-fittest" persons to educate children. 

Mr. William Thurston Brown, once Reverend, is full enough 
of good food and of bad faith to permit him to expend his en- 



Homeless Children. 251 

ergy in founding a Ferrer school, as the surest means of gather- 
ing socialist votes. The City of Salt Lake, it may be feared, 
shall prove itself not ready for the keeping in good faith the 
laws of the land, but ready for red-hot revolt against one form 
of a degraded family by its readiness for one of a lower level— 
for none at all. At all events the socialist movement is re- 
ported as meeting with much success in the Mormon States. 
And together with its ally, the Woman Suffrage movement, 
it may create a plague spot which shall soon command the 
most drastic attention of our Federal Government. 

The liberty of the " infant citizen ,L is not preached without 
its deep design— the complete surrender of parental rights to 
the board of secular education. 

We do not mean that every advocate of domestic instruc- 
tion in the pubK^ schools; of free text-books; free lunches; 
free spectacles etccetera, has the fixed intention of assailing paren- 
tal rights or of absorbing parental responsibilities by the domi- 
nant Control of the school boards. No ! Surely, very many 
are entirely innocent of the sinister meaning lying back of the 
phrases which roll so neatly off their tongues. What we do 
mean to say is that the doctrinaires who map out the inter- 
national policy of their educational program are fully aware 
of the task they have undertaken. And that task is to rule out 
and to keep out religious instruction from the public schools 
and to make it obligatory that all children shall attend them. 
As only so, when the alleged superstitions taught TDy religion 
shall no longer form a part of the child's education shall their 
own creed flourish; 

.-:,.- We mean to give over much testimony that the. socialist 
creed works for the destruction of the race. The little boy 
being asked why Puritans came to this country, replied, to 
worship God as they pleased and to make everybody else do 
the same. It is only a question of power whether socialists who 
fail to Worship God shall compel everybody else to do the same. 

John Spar go, who has great skill in compelling everybody 
else in the Socialist Party to do the same, says : 

"Liebknecht's name must always be associated with those of Marx, 
Engels, and Lassalle, in socialist history. He more than almost any 
other man has influenced the tactics of the socialist movement.". 



252 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

The Erfurt platform, which in general has formed the 
model for European programs, leaves no one in doubt as to 
its tactics with regard to the education of children. We quote: 

"Secularization of the schools. Compulsory attendance at the public 
schools." 

If religion is indeed a mere private concern, as socialist 
tacticians so vociferously insist, then, of course, the public 
schools cannot mix up this interest with mere private mat- 
ters. It were like compelling all girls to dress in pink and all 
boys to wear yellow. And if the child belongs primarily to 
the state then, of course, compulsory attendance at the pub- 
lic schools may be justly enforced. 

In this country where open opposition to religion receives 
no governmental support, and where, for want of power the 
A. P. A. hangs its sullen head, it is rather not tactical, to say the 
least, to let loose their dogs of war upon parental rights to 
educate their children in religious schools. 

Besides the shrewdest of the socialist politicians in this 
country know very well that our public schools system serves 
their own ends. That it is being quietly moved farther and 
farther away from a secular system of education — as if that were 
not a contradiction in terms, and, quietly moved more and 
more towards carrying into effect their own program, namely, 
a system of atheist education — as if that were not also a 
contradiction. Education surely implies the drawing out of that 
inner character which God has written upon the individual soul. 

Liebknecht says openly we mean that every child must be 
sent by its parents or relations to these secular schools, "in which 
no religion is taught," but Mr. James F. Carey seeks to cover the 
issue, and truly he is quite successful in his insincere design. 
Mr. Carey is, also somewhat successful in his role of competency 
to teach Catholic workmen what they shall believe in spite of 
what the Priests, Bishops and Cardinals of all the world and the 
Pope himself has said with regard to socialism. Mr. Carey pre- 
sumes to quote Liebknecht in showing that socialism is not hos- 
tile to religious education. But in doing so he cuts out the words 
in which no religion is taught, from its sentence in Socialism: What, 
It Is And What It Seeks to Accomplish, (p. 58) which he quotes. 



Homeless Children. 253 

Mr. Carey was not content with tampering with Liebknecht's 
quotation. In his address, which is printed under the title, 
The Menace of 'Socialism, which was advertised as a "reply" 
(Faneui! Hall, 2-5-1911) to Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S. J., 
President of Boston College, this ex-Catholic impudently and 
willfully makes the words of Pope Leo XIII to contradict the 
words of Pope Leo XIII. 

The dastardly act is prefaced by the reflection, "I trust that 
I will not lift them (quotations) out of the page, or out of the 
context." 

If indeed they had been lifted out of the page with integrity 
of purpose it would have been shown that in the first quotation 
Pope Leo was speaking of the individual's right to private 
property in commercial capitals; that in the second quotation 
Pope Leo was speaking with approval of what St. Thomas 
Aquinas had said with regard to the duty of charity, alms 
giving, from the rich to the poor. Hence two entirely differ- 
ent topics are made to be one and the same by the gentleman 
who is in such a state of mental confusion that he writes 
down the hope that he will not lift these quotations from the 
encyclical, on The Condition of the Working-Classes, out of 
the page. 

Whence shall a quotation be lifted? out of one's imagination ? 
We shall present these quotations which are as they should be 
lifted from the page of their great author, and as they should not 
be, violently torn from the meaning and the context of Pope 
Leo's encyclical which was intended to be, and is, to the especial 
benefit of the working class. All for what purpose by one who 
loudly proclaims his class interest! Well, common-sense must 
answer: To break down the confidence of Catholics in the 
perspicuity of Papal understanding of socialism and in the 
integrity of Papal authority. We quote the two excerpts, as 
found in The Menace of Socialism (p. 13) : 

"Thus it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, the community of 
goods, must be utterly rejected, for it would injure those whom it is 
intended to benefit." 



'"Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as 
common to all/ " 



254 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Whereupon Mr. Carey triumphantly asks : 

"Now what are you going to make out of that? Here is the encyclical 
of the Pope declaring against community of goods, and quoting with 
approval one who freely affirms it.". 

What are we going to make out of that? Why, it is entirely 
clear that the classic example was set down for our fitting reply : 
You lie, you villian, you lie. 

We give the passage from The Condition of the Working- 
classes with the words italicized which were quoted by Mr. 
Carey. The great pontiff says : 

"Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of man, 
and to exercise that right, especially as members of society, is not only 
lawful, but absolutely necessary. 'It is lawful' , says St. Thomas Aquinas, 
'for a man to hold private property ; and it is also necessary for thecarry- 
ing on of human life.' But if the question be asked : , 

"'Howmustone'spossessionsbeused?' The Church replies without 
hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor : 'Man should not con- 
sider his outward possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to 
share them without difficulty when others are in need. Whence the 
Apostle saith, Command the rich of this world . ...... to give with 

ease, to communicate! True, no one is commanded to distribute to 
others, that which is required for his own necessities and those of his 
household ; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep 
up becomingly his condition in life ; for no one ought to live unbecomingly. 
But when necessity has been supplied, and one's position fairly considered, 
it is a duty to give to the indigent out of that which is over.' '.! 

Here is no comfort for collectivists, though that was not 
Mr. Carey's purpose for the moment. It was, rather, to discredit 
ecclesiastical authority; because the parochial schools are a 
most determined bulwark against the pernicious notion that the 
state has the right to educate children in schools where no 
religion is taught. Having discredited the Pope 's authority up to 
the limit of his capacity, Mr. Carey lays down, with atheistic 
infallibility, the conviction that socialism is as "irresistible as 
the rising sun." 

But the ground of their contention is false, for religion is not 
a mere private matter. Religion is both a personal and a social 
matter; and not to the state government does the child belong 
but primarily to the government of it s parents. The child, under 
God's providence, is not born of the state but into the family. 



Homeless Children. 255 

Consequently there, are three .forms, of government under which 
we must live:, that of God, that of. the family, and that of the 
state ; while for the child the central government is that of the 
family; that of the adult is the government of God. first, the 
family second and the government of the state third, in the order 
of importance, while obedience to each is simultaneous. 

Since then religion is a public matter also, for unless the 
Lord build the nation he laboreth in vain who buildeth it, it 
should be clear that the state must 1 in its educational system 
provide for religious instructionvin conformity to the right of 
conscience. This is where Greek meets Greek. 

In "Socialism: What It Is And What It Seeks To Accom- 
plish ■" (Chicago, 1 901), Wilhelm Liebkneeht argues the point: 

"lit connection with this passage concerning the chureh we demand 
'Secularization of education.' This means that the church, that religion^ 
should have nothing to do with the school. We are bound by principle 
to demand this and the point is so clear that explanation seems un- 
necessary. However, it is worth while to meet beforehand all misunder- 
standings and intentional or unintentional misinterpretations to which 
such a demand in our platform could give occasion. It is well known how 
stubbornly the ecclesiastical bodies carry on the struggle concerning the 
school whenever that question comes to the front. One recognizes how 
much it means to them, Catholics, Protestants and others to hold arid 
make their control firm over the intellect.' I 

The tacticians here in America take a flank movement 
in gaining compulsory secular education.. Undoubtedly. they 
see the trend of the times to create a monopoly of education 
on a secular foundation. And it were not. tactical to alarm 
the popular religious element and to disturb the action of a 
superior force going in. their own direction. The parochial 
school system is the kmk force standing firmly in the path of 
socialist propaganda on the issue of education. 

The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party 
officially recommends John Spargo's " Socialism "as a text- 
book- for. ats own membership and for. others interested in its 
doctrine; While editor, A. M. Simons, in his review of this 
book, speaking especially of the passage we here present, says 
that nearly all the socialists will agree with Spargo. The book 
itself is dedicated by Spargo : 



256 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children, 

"To George D. Herron, 

'With two forms and with two figures, but with one soul, thou and I.' 

Jalalu — adin Rumi." 

In Spargo's text-book there appears the reprint of a poem 
dedicated in 1808 by its author to Robert Owen. Its fatalism 
were indeed not above a fitting tribute to the originator of the 
word, but to any of the present day leaders of socialism: 

'THE FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 

"We are the creatures of external things, 
Acting on inward organs and are made 
To think and do whate'er our tutors please. 
What folly, then, to punish or reward 
For deeds o'er which we never held a curb! 
What woeful ignorance, to teach the crime 
And then chastise the pupil for his guilt." 

Not God's children by their own recognition; they are 
truly in a most unenviable state. Yet with ever-bulking pride 
they take themselves to be the leaders of the race. Alas! 
they do lead a multitude to self-disaster and a host against 
the nation. 

The text-book has a chapter on " A Summary and Interpre- 
tation of Socialist Principles," from which we quote: 

"Whether the socialist regime could tolerate the existence of ele- 
mentary schools other than its own, such as privately conducted kinder- 
gartens and schools, religious schools, and so on, is questionable. Prob- 
ably not. It would probably not content itself with refusing to permit 
religious doctrines or ideas to be taught in its schools, but would go fur- 
ther, and, as the natural protector of the child, guard its independence of 
thought in later life as far as possible by forbidding religious teaching of 
any kind in schools for children up to a certain age. Beyond that age, 
religious education, in all other than the public schools, would be freely 
permitted. This restriction of religious education to the years of judg- 
ment and discretion implies no hostility to religion on the part of the 
State, but neutrality. Not the least important of the rights of the child 
is the right to be protected from influences which bias the mind and destroy 
the possibilities of independent judgment in later life, or make it attainable 
only as a result of bitter, needless, tragic experience." 

The gratitutious information of this text-book, that "the 
natural protector of the child ' ' is the state, should be inform- 



Homeless Children. 257 

ing to Catholics, Protestants and Jews alike, in fact, to all 
wholesome minded parents who are aware that they are the 
natural protectors of their children. For it is in plain view 
that to its advocates the socialist majority constitutes the state. 
Thus the vaunted neutrality which in the next breath is hos- 
tility of the state towards the "infant citizen's" right to be 
taught the religion of its parents shall depend upon the will 
of that same socialist majority with atheism as its creed. More- 
over, as this same majority has the alleged duty as the natural 
protector of the child to bar out religious training of any sort, 
it should be certain that the parents' right to educate their 
children according to the dictates of their conscience would 
be just as effective as whistling against the wind. 

The every-day citizen does not forget that the Supreme 
Court is the final court of appeals with the Constitution as 
its ground of judgment. But so illy do socialist educators (sic) 
reason and so lamely do their pupils think that it is taken for 
granted that the will of the majority is like the law of the Medes 
and the Persians — until the next officials come in. Yet that 
socialists are to-day a unit on the issue of compulsory secular 
education, The Appeal to Reason (3-28-1903), may show in 
its answer concerning parochial schools : 

"Editor Appeal to Reason: 

" 'Would parochialschools be abolished under socialism?'. INQUIRER. 

"'Under socialism the majority will decide, the same as it does to-day. 
If the majority decide that parochial schools shall be abolished, that will 
settle it. So much is certain that every child will have to attend the 
public school, before it attends any other school. At the same time, since 
religion is regarded as a private matter by socialists, parochial schools 
would not necessarily disappear under socialism. The people who believe 
in them would be free to support them, if they wanted them. And the 
children, after their regular school hours, could attend the parochial 
schools. But, of course, it is impossible to say to-day what the majority 
will do, when we shall have established socialism."! 

Having doctrinally assigned the right of the child to its 
"natural protector" — the state — socialism not only denies to 
children their right to a home, but it assails, practically, their 
right to be born. 



25# Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

The editor of The Workingman's paper— The Socialist, 
(Seattle, March 7-2-1910) — introduces a story— "Comet yr - — 
(run in Pearson's, July, 1910), with the following note: 

"EDITORIAL NOTE.— We have added the sub-title to this story. 
In our opinion 'You've Got Nerve' is the proper thing to say whenever 
wage-workers propose to marry and have a family. The marriage is all 
right, the sooner the better. But the family ? Cut it out, young working- 
men and workingwomen, however much it goes against the grain or against 
the advice of Teddy. 

"If you read this story intelligently, you'll know why you should not 
allow yourselves to have children. It's horribly unnatural, but it's still 
more unnatural to kill your love for each other and send your offspring 
into this world of wage slavery, producing such mothers and grandmothers 
and families as are too truly drawn in this little story from life, which can 
be duplicated a million times in America; yes, nearer five million times. 

"Do we advise infanticide or criminal abortion ? No , neither is neces- 
sary. There are perfectly innocent and harmless ways of preventing 
conception which you can learn from any reputable physician and which 
are now known and practiced by thousands of young couples who have 
been driven by Capitalist Necessity to deny themselves the tenderest joys 
of life.'! 

No! this is not an isolated instance, nor is the advice of 
recent date, though we intend to present only matter of re- 
cent date. The New York Call (1-23-1910), publishes an article 
from the Rev. Roland D. Sawyer, from which we take this 
excerpt: 

3 1 "The capitalist's church continues to teach its working class communi- 
cants to have large families and the capitalist state continues to make 
laws forbidding the workingman's wife having means at hand to escape 
conception. Satisfactory and safe means to escape conception can easily 
be provided, and there is no release for these unfortunate women, until the 
state and the doctors shall change their inhuman conduct, and make easy and 
accessible these means to our women, so that they need have no more babies 
than they want or can properly take care of 'I 

Again, in August 14th, of the same year, on that day 
which all men are commanded to keep holy, The Call publishes 
from the pen of the reverend gentleman an article on Race 
Suicide. This leader of the people into the most revolting 
of sins has set up a law fantastic to suit his libidinous theory. 
The world must wait for "race justice," which socialism in- 



Homeless Children. 259 

tends to usher in— to govern a sex-crazed people. Until that 
time unspeakable sins are virtues, and so should be commonly 
practiced : 

"For several years Theodore Roosevelt has joined his influence with 
the Catholic Church in an effort to check progress and happiness by ad- 
vocating the rearing of large families of children. . . 

"And until we get that justice the more often that working class 
parents can prevent conception, at least beyond two or three children, the 
more often will a blessed thing be done. For under capitalism the greatest 
blessing that could come into the homes of the working class would be the 
limitation of the number of children.'' 

It were a relief, but our pen may not pause, for our quarrel 
is not with some puny foe, but with an ever-growing host 
governed by no lesser person than his satanic majesty himself. 
The Reverend Sawyer's writings are in great vogue with the 
writers of The Woman's Sphere, a division of The Call, which 
is without question the leading socialist paper in the country. 

Writing on the same subject — Race Suicide — for The 
Woman's Sphere, Mary Tyng refers to the Sawyer article, de- 
claring it to be : 

"so sane, so just and so sympathetic an understanding of this great prob- 
lem of the perpetuation of the race. . . , .." 

as to meet with unqualified approval; and then goes on to tell 
of the risk women run in their unskilled attempts at abortion. 
We quote : 

"Abortion should, I think, be only the last resort. After all, it is 
not pleasant for a woman, to say the least, to feel that there is a little life 
growing in her that she must kill. But eventually I believe that we shall 
become so enlightened that these unfortunate women will need only to 
go to a public hospital and say, 'I have become pregnant by accident and 
should like to have an operation,' in order to get such an operation per- 
formed with every precaution and safeguard.'! (The Call, Woman's 
Sphere, Sept. 4, 19 10.) 

Were not all comment superfluous to show that the un- 
born child, the most helpless of all, and the most appealing to 
the chaste mother for protection, finds in socialism its most 
ruthless murderer! We proceed with the testimony on this 



2 6o Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

point. There is in The Call (Dec. 11-1910), a four-column 
article in praise of " The American Society of Medical Socio- 
logy," by Courtenay Lemon. Taking the usual socialist 
ground that economic conditions are responsible for by far the 
greater part of disease; and inferentially condemning contin- 
ence by suggesting that a celibate life is likely to impair the 
general health and lead to impotence, Mr. Lemon goes on to say: 

"The prevention of conception is another subject on which there is 
perhaps even greater need of a campaign of education, a campaign against 
the laws, court decisions and post-office rulings which prevent the dis- 
semination of information on this question. There is now a preventive 
which is simple and sure, and which is not open to the usual esthetic ob- 
jections *, but the laws make it a crime to give specific information to the 
public at large on this question. The result is that this preventive re- 
mains comparatively unknown, thus enabling the few physicians acquaint- 
ed with it to hold it at a price almost prohibitive to persons who are not 
wealthy. 

"Yet few subjects are of more importance, especially to the working 
class and to the revolutionary movement. The so-called race suicide 
is in reality a maternal general strike, a declaration in the interests of 
both the unborn and the living, that no more children shall be brought 
into the world until a change of social conditions has made it a fit place for 
them to live in. The demand for more children is the cry of the im- 
perialistic, atavistic beast type of man like Roosevelt. 

"In Sweden there is now a movement among the proletariat with 
the slogan, Love without children — a slogan which has the virtue of 
concisely expressing the fact that the movement does not aim at im- 
possible and undesirable celibacy, but at the prevention of conception." 

It is reserved for that profession which should for the 
love of men for God's sake heal their bodies, not make them 
vile, to descend to a lower depth of degradation yet. Not an 
obscure person, no, for William J. Robinson, M. D., is President 
of the American Society of Medical Sociology. He is editor 
of three magazines — The Critic and Guide, The Medical Review 
of Reviews, The American Journal of Urology, and a frequent 
contributor to socialist papers. Writing upon the subject " Why 
Men Do Not Marry," "And the Remedy for This Anti-Social 
Condition," for the Woman's Day Edition of the New York 
Call (2-26-1911), Doctor Robinson says: 

"Take away the fear of having children, having too many of them, 
or having them too soon after marriage, and thousands and thousands of 



Homeless Children. 261 

men who now want to wait until they are 'well fixed' or who have decided 
to remain bachelors forever, will make a rush for the marriage bureau.' ' 

Having stated a condition of mind, all too prevalent, it 
must be acknowledged, which is contrary to a wholesome state, 
and in defiance of the chaste undertanding of the primary 
reason for marriage, Doctor Robinson proceeds: 

"The only way to take away the fear of having too many children 
or of having them too soon is to teach the people, teach them freely and 
openly, the methods of preventing conception. I have advocated this 
for years, and it is my profound conviction that no single measure would 
contribute so much toward the happiness and the welfare of the race as 
would the knowledge of the proper means of the prevention of conception." 

There follows sixteen paragraphs of argument in which 
the benefits that would come to women from such knowledge 
is set forth, and the evils which they could escape by its prac- 
tical application. Dr. Robinson explains that because this 
article appears in a distinctively Woman's issue, he has not 
dwelt upon the "benefits" which such practical knowledge 
would confer upon men. This side of the discussion he leaves 
for another occasion. "Perhaps The Call will sometime publish 
a Man's issue." Of course, the words "benefits" and "evils" 
from the pen of Dr. Robinson have not the significance which 
attaches to their use by one who respects his body as the temple 
built by the living God for the habitation on earth of an im- 
mortal soul. Hence this man who uses science to defeat the 
work of religion and to disease the human body, seeks success- 
fully to differentiate himself from those who love God and 
fear to break the Commandments. Such are good people. We 
quote: 

"These good people, who seriously object to any attempt to teach 
the people methods of prevention, have even succeeded in getting a federal 
law passed which makes the giving of any information regarding the 
subject a felony punishable by five years at hard labor and $5,000 fine. 
And a number of people are now languishing in prisons for the terrible 
crime of having sent some poor woman the information, how she could 
protect herself from having more than half a dozen children. These good 
people are afraid that the universal possession of such knowledge would 
send mankind to the demnition bow-wows. ... I know of no 
more important task than to do everything in our power to repeal the 



262 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

infamous law which makes the sending of information about the pre- 
vention of conception a crime exactly on a par with the crime of per- 
forming an abortion, and about equivalent to that of burglary or murder." 

The devilish skill with which abortion is psychologically 
separated from murder and so made to look on a par with that 
very ' 'beneficial' ' abomination — the prevention of conception 
— is worthy of the most highly developed socialist mind. It 
gives proof that right-reason has been utterly abandoned for 
a perverse state, and the final paragraph which we present from 
Dr. Robinson would seemingly declare it to be chronic: 

"There is no single measure that would so positively, so immediately 
contribute toward the happiness and progress of the human race as 
teaching the people the proper means of prevention of conception. This 
has been my deepest and sincerest conviction since I have learned to 
think rationally.'* 

We maintain that socialist writers and propagandists should 
be met and worsted. They cannot be ignored, for with religion 
scorned and right -reason denied, their influence creeps like a 
miasmatic wind into every class of society. The movement 
grips like a plague those less able to defend themselves in the 
fierce industrial struggle which the lust for gold let loose upon 
the Christian world when the Church was deprived of her au- 
thority over commerce, through the disruption of Her guilds, 
which kept safe the right to a living wage, and secure the equi- 
ties between master and man. 

We submit that a non-religious basis of philosophy is an 
immoral basis of reason which precludes the possibility of a 
rational civil code, and so blurs the lines of plain, every-day 
judgment that the mind becomes habitually perverse and the 
heart benumbed and withered. 

Moreover, parents must choose to defend their right to 
educate their children in the knowledge of God or submit to 
that system that has not alone an utter disregard for faith 
and morals, but an active resentment to religion. There is 
no half-way-house to rest easy in, for the practical effects of 
socialism are not limited to its own membership; its influ- 
ence like the incoming tide, floods our schools with its filthy 
waters. 



Homeless Children. 263 

Let us enforce our own argument with the strength of the 
great Archbishop of Boston. He has in one searching and 
eloquent passage/in a lecture on Joan of Arc, summed up the 
devastation intended by socialist propaganda. It would leave 
Christian civilization in ruins, our country but an echo of great- 
ness, and home a wail in a wilderness of desolate hearts: 

"Amid the new and strange doctrines which . . . socialism has be- 
gotten in our own time none is falser, none more inhuman, none more 
vicious and dangerous in its effects and conclusions than that foolish and 
degrading theory by which the sentiment of patriotism is flouted and 
denied. By its endeavors to tear out from the human heart all its inborn 
sentiments of reverence for rulers and for law it seeks to kill in humanity 
its natural love for home and all that is expressed by that sacred word. 
To them nothing is sacred, neither God nor his altars, nor his ministers, 
nor home, nor native land, nor wife, nor family. For socialism, accord- 
ing to its accredited teachers, would wipe out forever from human life, 
all the sweet consolations as well as all the noble duties which these 
human relations have ever inspired in the normal man. No fatherland, 
no banner, no fireside, no altar, no ruler, no God. Thus are summed up 
all the damnable negations of this satanic doctrine, which overturns 
with one fell blow all the holiest principles of human life. No wonder 
that where the voice of these prophets of evil is listened to and obeyed 
the disorder of hell reigns. Behold France with its desecrated shrines 
and its homes defiled and childless. Behold Barcelona filled with regicides 
and traitors. The pulpits where once sounded the truths which builded 
up a nation's strength are being pulled down, the schools wherein were 
taught those principles which consecrated home and fatherland have 
been closed and in their place the little children of a nation are being 
initiated into the horrors of infidelity and anarchy which always go hand 
in hand. No wonder the spirit of national honor is departing and in a 
few years when the children of the present have grown to manhood 
and the new doctrines have full play, what will there be left to guard as 
a nation's inheritance." 

Archbishop William H. O'Connell's question answers itself. 
There shall be left the abomination of desolation, if, in any 
country, socialists work out their theory into its practical 
conclusion. 

We appeal to the mothers and fathers; to their hearts and 
to their heads ; to the young men and women who one day 
hope to take their places as the honored parents in pure homes, 
to study with care the attitude of the socialist parties as to 
the family and the care of children; that they may be pre- 



264 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

pared to do battle in defense of the home, the family and the 
citizenship of our country. When socialists eloquently inveigh 
against poverty and the fear of poverty (which God knows 
to be distressing) the sympathy of your hearts must be held 
in check that you may with cool deliberation supply your minds 
with the knowledge of socialist principles which lie behind these 
fervid pictures, and for which their propaganda is made. With 
a knowledge of what socialism truly is, you may turn those 
who are not yet thoroughly corrupted with its specious philo- 
sophies back again to moral ideals, to a life of honor to their 
country and their God. Our hope is and our effort is to sup- 
ply the knowledge that shall set your hearts on fire with the 
task of awakening those who are now entranced with the glamor 
of socialist doctrine and of protecting those who are not so 
dazed, that a goodly army of valiant Americans shall defend the 
land our fathers gave us against becoming a nation of Homeless 
Children. 



Socialist Leaders. 

'Romeo ' 

Come bitter conduct, come unsavory guide! 
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark!" 



"Eating and drinking, music, beautiful forms, and women. The 
pleasures of the belly are the root and the principle of all virtue. 

Epicurus. " 

PRINCIPLES find their embodiment in personal character, 
in the relationships of men and in the institutions which 
they build. 

Socialism is international in its scope; the principles it 
seeks to overthrow are world-wide in extent, while those which 
it would institute know no state boundaries. Socialists cannot 
demonstrate their principles until, at least, a nation is fully 
under their domination. 

What one may see, however, of socialist principles, is in 
miniature; in relations which shall consequently be universal 
under the regime which is advocated. We shall cite cases of 
the personal application of socialist philosophy, national and 
international. 

Were we to set our searchlight upon the immoral and il- 
legal sex association of some of the "class-conscious" social- 
ists in many centers in which they congregate and propagate 
their doctrine, it would astonish not alone those who vote the 
ticket, but many of the members of the organization — the 
greater number of which never enter into its inner council, 
nor become acquainted with socialist philosophy, — for the 
very simple and sufficient reason that socialism, as superficially 
understood, relates merely to the labor movement. 

Socialist sophistries and double dealing are on no question 
more in evidence than on that of marriage. Socialists advo- 
cate a new society in which the sex association of men and 
women will be maintained without let or hindrance of state or 



266 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

church. It follows that many socialists, although they hold to 
the doctrines so plainly brought out in our chapter on Free 
Love, are constrained for politic reasons to marry, and some 
are quite vulgar enough, in the interest of socialist propaganda, 
to parade their "legal association" (one may be sure there was 
no ceremony at the altar) as "proof" that socialists believe 
in marriage. While others being bolder or less politic r or less 
responsible to society, having no regard for the " present marriage 
system," and consequently feeling under no moral obligation 
to live up to its civil or religious mandates — or rather scorning 
the slavery of being tied to one man or woman for life, live as 
they please, declaring that one's body is one's own to do with 
as one pleases. 

The illustrations of socialist free love philosophy which 
we shall present have been before the public gaze; they are 
here given as woeful illustrations of that which would by domi- 
nating a socialist society inevitably destroy it, were it once 
erected. 

We would refuse to bring before the public eye the view 
of these cases for motives of a personal character. But be- 
cause the baneful cause of socialism may not be so clearly seen 
as by the awful light of tragedies upon the hearthstone, we 
feel constrained to enter upon this ground. It so happened, 
although we were active in the movement for years, that we 
did not make the personal acquaintance of some of these leaders, 
and only a formal movement acquaintance with others. Hence 
neither the cry of "dishonoring the dead " nor of " scandal " 
cause us to waver a hair's breadth from the necessary course 
outlined. - z&zrasn - ^ 

Besides, the acts of public men and women are. by right 
open to public inspection. Acts of a character not above re- 
proach; acts of those who advocate the destruction of moral 
standards should be opened up to view that the unwary may 
not be led into the traps that are set for them. The motives 
which prompt this chapter rest on these grounds. In fact, 
the motives that prompt this book are impersonal, they are 
civic, a love and regard for the advance of American citizen- 
ship; especially the hope, of improving the present conditions 
which press heavily on the wage-workers; the desire that civic 



: ' ' '• ■■- - i ' : • ' ■ 

Socialist Leaders. 267 

- ■ - - 

harmony on the high plane of Christian democracy shall one 
day be the common life of man. These considerations alone are 
the reasons for this work. 

Karl Marx's daughter, Eleanor, was the most prominent 
woman socialist ever known in the movement. She was an 
able linguist ; acting as interpreter at international social- 
ist conventions; translating reports of the socialist and labor 
movement throughout the world for the " International Work- 
ingmen's Association," and its press. She translated many 
socialist, works of great importance to the movement, such as 
Lissagaray's "History of the Commune of 187 1," from the 
French, and Plechanoff's " Anarchism and Socialism." 

Eleanor Worked untiringly for the interests of socialism. 
Her motives, from all that is known to the writer, were above 
question. Those who knew her personally say she possessed 
a charming personality. But Eleanor imbibed the teachings 
of her father! Her life was wrapped up in her father's philo- 
sophy. She believed in "economic determinism," in atheism, 
in free love. To her, her father's doctrine was more than be- 
lief ; it was bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh; she was 
a class-conscious socialist. And alas ! she practiced what she 
preached. Herein lay her sin — herein she fell. We trust 
God in his infinite mercy will take the sufferings of her last un- 
happy days, and the terrible conclusion of her life, as an atone- 
ment for the evil she committed, as she was betrayed by the 
false teachings of her own father. 

Wilhelm Liebknecht, late leader of the German Social 
Democracy — a close personal and political associate of Karl 
Marx and his family, says of Eleanor, "To write a history of 
her Hfe— I should have to write the history of the international 
working class movement!" 

One may become specifically acquainted with Eleanor's 
views on religion and on the sex question from her review of 
the first English edition of August Bebel's book, "Woman." 
We quote : 

"That a work dealing so thoroughly and ably as Bebel's with such 
immense questions as woman's social position, the relations of the sexes, 
marriage, prostitution, population, must be of the greatest value to all 
socialists and to all students of social science, is self -evident.. But to 



268 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

English socialists such a work is doubly valuable, for we have to fight, not- 
only the usual prejudices and opposition of the governing classes, but also 
the hypocrisy of a Bible-reading nation still imbued with the early 
Christian fear and hatred of the nature of woman (as the embodiment of 
all evil and temptation) which would forbid every open reference to either 
subject. The ordinary English bourgeois will tolerate, indeed enjoy, an 
indecent innuendo or doubtful allusion ; but he will turn away in virtuous 
horror from a frank and serious discussion of serious questions, and feel 
a thrill of moral indignation at an earnest and scientific examination of 
them. Hence in England the most determined champions of Woman's 
rights rarely deal with the all-important marriage question, and when a 
woman is brave enough to do so she has to do it anonymously, besides 
assuring the world that she is 'respectable.' Socialists in England — 
especially we women socialists — are, then, deeply indebted to our comrade, 
August Bebel, for his brave and noble work . . . . ". 

"Bebel's treatment of the marriage question is admirable. Of 
course the virtuous Philistine of all classes will be profoundly shocked." 
(Vol. i, No. 6. "The Commonweal.") 

In the early 8o's, before Marx's death, Eleanor made the 
acquaintance of her father's friend, Edward Bibbings Aveling, 
a once prominent leader of the Secularist Society of Great Britain. 
Having been forced to resign from this atheist organization, he 
devoted his time to the socialist movement. Later he became 
one of its ablest champions. Dr. Aveling gained an inter- 
national reputation through the translation of "Das Kapital" 
into English — and from the large circulation of his books. He 
was of course an "economic determinist," an atheist, a free 
lover. The quality of his work may readily be judged by 
noting the quotations from his pen in the foregoing chapters 
of this book. 

Eleanor and Aveling fell in with each other's views, be- 
lieving in an "unconventional intercourse of the sexes" and 
in the other socialist ideals so plainly exposed in our chapter 
on Free Love; they lived together as man and wife. It was 
current gossip that Aveling had a wife, living in the city of 
London, at the time he began his association with Eleanor. 
Being not fully acquainted as to the truth of Dr. Aveling's 
marriage, we will consider the question in hand quite apart 
from this point in the case. Save to call the reader's atten- 
tion to the socialist dogma upon this point — the fact of having 
a wife would in no wise prevent the new association 



Socialist Leaders. 269 

For when "mutual fondness" ceases, a separation and its 
replacement by a new passionate love is a "blessing" to all 
concerned. 

It was well known to Marx, and to the other leaders and 
also to the socialist movement generally that his (Marx's) 
daughter Eleanor and Dr. Aveling were living together in ac- 
cordance with socialist sex philosophy. 

Together they worked in the socialist movement. In 
1886-87 they made a fifteen weeks' tour of the United States 
under the auspices of the Socialist Labor Party. 

In his "History of Socialism," Morris Hillquit makes 
reference to this extensive lecture tour of Wilhelm Liebknecht, 
the then leader of the German Social Democracy, " in conjunc- 
tion with Eleanor Marx Aveling, the eloquent and brilliant 
daughter of Karl Marx and her husband." Surely the word 
"husband" is no slip of the pen with the historian who is well- 
informed as to the details of the tour. About fifty meetings 
were held in the principal cities of the United States, and, in- 
deed their propaganda greatly stimulated the German societies 
to extend their socialist organizations. 

Again, in 1888, Miss Marx visited this country; this time 
her associates in socialist propaganda were Frederick Engels 
and her "husband" as chronicled by the politic hand of Hill- 
quit. 

But to come to the dire climax, Aveling's "individual sex 
love ' ' ceased — Eleanor's ' ' fondness ' ' remained unbroken. Being 
utterly devoid of faith, her purely physical ideal snatched from 
her by the hand of blind fate, With love for Edward, she filled 
a vial with poison ; with disgust for the world she drank it to 
the dregs, dying a martyr to what socialists call "freedom." 

Edward B. Aveling, married sometime before Miss Marx's 
death; himself, filled with the unrest of a mocking spirit, soon 
thereafter died. 

The press reports of Miss Marx's suicide were sent through- 
out the world, despite the socialist efforts to suppress the news. 
The Daily People alone, so far as we know, a decade later says 
Eleanor Marx Aveling — "ended her own life — driven to the 
deed through the unhappy and unfortunate outcome of her 
marriage to Dr. Edward Aveling." So it is that the suicide 






270 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

which took place is on the whole suppressed while the marriage 
which did not take place is made to occur^— all in the interest 
of propaganda. 

Very few comments were made in the socialist press about 
the affair. It was a blow they gladly would have smothered. 
Neither was the death nor the life work of this faithful and un- 
tiring woman, and martyr to the socialist cause, scarcely men- 
tioned. 

The Edinburgh Socialist (Oct., 1904), wonders if the ashes 
of Eleanor Marx still repose "in the cupboard at 3 Bolt Court?" 
(London). 

Eleanor Marx's loss to the socialist movement was great. 
But to speak of her much worth to them they dare not! There 
stood the spectre of her sex life and its awful end. To speak 
in disapproval of her association with Dr. Aveling would be a 
condemnation of the well-known principles of socialism rela- 
tive to the family; therefore silence as to the tragedy,— silence 
as to her due credit — was the policy best calculated to make 
political progress in these United States. And to what end? 
Why, God forfend! to the end of submerging the nation in 
this vortex of sex sin by setting up their ideal, the " free family. " 
The lid of hell may well come off and the damned dance free, 
at the project. 

If so faithful, so able, so brave a woman to do their vile 
hests meet with so little honor at the hands of those who call 
her sin virtue, what treatment may lesser women expect at 
their red hands if once they hold the nation's power? It were 
well for socialist women to consider. 

Even the Social Democrat of London, England, Eleanor's 
home, had very few words to say. 

The following quotation is taken from its pages : 

"Apart from the merely legal tie, Eleanor Marx was truly 
and devotedly his wife in every sense, M 

The italics are ours. But for that one word "merely," 
what a different tale might have been told. 

For safeguarding the body politic in its right to know the 
lives of public men and women, and more particularly as in 
this case, a law of Christian civilization was disregarded will- 



Socialist Leaders. 271 

fully, we are indebted to a Chicago woman, Mrs. Caroline Cor- 
bin. We quote from an article in Labor and Capital (April, 
I 9°3)t entitled: 

"Are Socialism and Home Life Antagonistic? 

"I have been a faithful student of socialism for thirty years. I have 
read many books on the subject, have carefully watched its public action 
and read all the declarations and programs of its various congresses that 
I could discover by careful search in that time. I have conversed with 
some eminent European advocates of the system with the express purpose 
of elucidating this very point, as to whether socialism would recognize 
civic or Christian marriage, and I have failed to discover a shred of evi- 
dence that it would do so. 

"MISS MARX'S VIEWS.— On the contrary, I have found in the 
utterances of such men as Hasenclever, Hyndman, Bebel and many 
others abundant evidence that the declaration of Eleanor, daughter of 
Karl Marx, made in ray presence and in that of more than a score of wit- 
nesses besides — and I may add repeated in almost identical terms by 
one of my recent critics — sums up the whole teaching of the socialistic 
system on this subject. 

"Miss Marx said, as stated in the Chicago Tribune Nov. 14, 1886, 
by an impartial witness : 

"'Love is the only recognized marriage in socialism, consequently no 
bonds of any kind would be recognized. Divorce would be impossible, as 
there would be nothing to divorce, for when love ceased, separation would 
naturally ensue.'' 

"Miss Marx was at that time traveling in this country with Dr. 
Aveling, the intimate friend of her father, Karl Marx, and the translator 
into English of his chief work, 'Das Kapital.' She passed as Mrs. Aveling, 
although the real wife of Dr. Aveling, an ageing and invalid woman, was 
living in London. When at her death a few years later Dr. Aveling 
discarded Miss Marx and married another woman, the tragic story of the 
suicide of the sometime 'free wife* was heralded in the leading news- 
papers of England and America.". 

The pointedness of Mrs. Corbin's article challenged a re- 
sponse from the socialist press. Surely this were the occasion 
for an out and out denial of their doctrinal belief in free love; 
or for a frank acceptance of it. What then as a matter of his- 
torical fact was the attitude of the socialist press upon the ap- 
pearance of Mrs. Corbin's forceful paper? A shifting of the 
ground; a denial by implication, and for the rest silence. The 
Coming Nation softly turns the issue, careful not to injure the 
feelings of those who scorn recognized forms. We quote ; 



272 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"As regards Mrs. Corbin's statement that Eleanor Aveling lived with 
Dr. Aveling as his wife without being married to him according to recog- 
nized forms, I have often heard this stated as a fact, and I presume it is 
true. But what of it ? What has Eleanor Aveling got to do with the 
principles of socialism ? The question that confronts us as sane men and 
women is not what Eleanor Aveling did or did not do, but, shall we have 
industrial freedom or industrial slavery?" (May 23rd, 1903.) 

But the master politician denies the fact which it probably 
knows all about, and deftly slanders a Jesuit priest: 

"Father Sherman well knows that society to-day is honeycombed 
with immorality, yet he passes this by with evident approval, and then 
tries to make the socialists appear immoral by reciting the oft-denied story 
about Eleanor Marx." ((The Social Democratic Herald, June 13, 1903.) 

We have expressed a truism by saying that socialist prin- 
ciples find their embodiment in personal relations, hence the 
interrogation "what has Eleanor Aveling got to do with the 
principles of socialism? " — with " industrial freedom or industrial 
slavery?" may spring from ignorance, or it may be a sample 
of socialist tactics in embryo. If it be the former, then is it 
an assumption for so illy-informed an editor to sit in a social- 
ist sanctum. If it be the latter, then it is evidence that the 
editor has not yet the fully developed "socialist mind." For a 
well developed "socialist mind" lies right out if he must to 
"down" an antagonist. Let us rather believe that the editor 
of The Coming Nation does not see the connection of Eleanor 
Marx's association with Edward B. Aveling with the principles 
of socialism. He may be better informed if he shall study this 
book, which is meant to give just this necessary education. 
A fully informed person in the cult knows that Eleanor's life 
was a miniature demonstration of the "free marriage" which 
is to be the rule under the " free society" of socialism. 

What Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx " did or did not 
do," would not be of interest to us, were it not for the fact 
that their relation embodies the ideals of an organization which 
seeks the suffrages of our citizens. We would do much that their 
lives might not become the pattern for the life of all the people. 

Presumably not content with the expression of its own 
ignorance, or with its double dealing, The Coming Nation dis- 
cusses the matter further in the same issue; 



Socialist Leaders. 273 

"Mrs. Corbin bases her assumption that 'home life' — and by that 
she means the sacred marital relation existing between husband and wife — 
would be abolished, on the statement of some half dozen socialists. 
Mrs. Corbin should bear in mind, as should all others who are considering 
this phase of the question that a Bebel, a Hyndman, a Hasenclever, count 
but one, and their influence and ideas would extend just to the extent 
that the rest of society accepted them." 

Oh, no ! You are mistaken, my dear socialist editor, they 
count three, not "one!" And when you add the authority 
of Marx, Engels, Bax, Ferri, Carpenter, Herron, La Monte, Oscar 
Wilde, Kautsky, Jaures, and hundreds of others — when you 
add the dozens of socialist editors the only one that is left is 
the misinformed Red Hill editor. 

Neither was the Social Democratic Herald satisfied to let 
the Marx-Aveling case drop with the mere slander of a man — 
Father Sherman. Its "oft-denied story" did not keep quiet. 
So on Independence Day (1903) the editor slanders a sincere 
woman to paint white an unfortunate woman of whom it was 
no slander to say she was a free wife after the socialist fashion, 
but the sorry truth. Under the atheistic caption "The Church 
and the Money Bags," it says: 

"As to Mrs. Corbin and her filthy insinuations against the socialists 
we hardly feel called on to reply. Only a woman of filthy mind could 
persist in her slanders when all the evidence go to disprove them." 

The editor then proceeds tactically to condemn the evils 
of low wages and the hard conditions of the working: class and 
adroitly closes without answering Mrs. Corbin 's questions, 
and by giving the "socialist minds" the socialist method of 
self-defense, in making propaganda, namely, slander : 

"Mrs. Corbin's articles referred to above are filled with untruth, 
distorted utterances of socialists used to bolster up her foul insinuations, 
and slanders of people now dead, and hence unable to defend themselves — 
notably Eleanor Marx. Mrs. Corbin is certainly a low-minded woman." 

This is really meant in defense of Eleanor's work for so- 
cialism. For it is necessary to keep in the good graces of the 
"international working class," who have no qualms of con- 
science about accepting her life as correct, after the socialist 
pattern. 



274 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

When the women of this country realize the danger which 
confronts the home, when they become .aware of this cuttle- 
fish that swims in our civic waters, when they learn the im- 
moral standards which rest on socialist principles (which the 
life of Eleanor frightfully exemplifies, then the service of Mrs. 
Caroline Corbin, who is by socialists called "low-minded," 
will be rightly valued. Then will the socialist movement be 
nearer its end. 

The issue must be met! Socialists may answer, guilty; 
or they may be proven guilty by the conspiracy of silence. 

i st. Were not Eleanor Marx and Edward Bibbings Ave- 
ling leaders of the socialist movement ? 

2nd. Are not their books circulated as means of propa- 
ganda within the international socialist movement? 

3rd. Did not Eleanor Marx and Dr. Aveling live the sex 
life as advocated by socialist teachings? 

These are the questions which concern the public weal, 
for the reason that socialism has organized a political party to 
enforce its principles. The socialist editors need not think 
to escape by lying, it only proves guilt. For which, Heaven 
forgive them and cleanse them, for the virus of irresponsibility 
is in the marrow of their atheistic bones. 

We now turn to a more recent, a national example of the 
immoral practice of socialist philosophy. We shall set forth 
the conduct of one of the foremost among the class conscious 
socialists of America, George D. Herron. 

The socialist movement of the United States, from 1902 
to the year 1908, probably owes more of its progress to this 
leader than to any other person in the socialist party. In 
1899 a split took place in the Socialist Labor Party. The larger 
division set up its headquarters at Springfield, Mass. The 
Social Democratic Party, under the leadership of Eugene V. 
Debs, had headquarters at Chicago, 111. By duplicity and di- 
plomacy a union of the two organizations was effected. And 
to George D. Herron, the present Socialist Party largely owes 
its existence. The national convention of July, 1901, effected 
socialist unity. The first move which greatly facilitated unity 
was the election of Mr, Herroix as chairman. The second point 



Socialist Leaders. 275 

of reconciliation was his "compromise immediate demands, " 
the Socialist Labor division having stood for the complete 
overthrow of the planks in the platform which by socialists 
are known as "immediate demands;" thereby signifying 
that those measures are not properly a part of socialism, but 
only the means of organizing a political party and getting 
elected to office. 

In reporting the doings of this convention, The Worker 



"The selection of Herron as temporary chairman was unanimous and 
satisfactory to all parties, ... he steered the convention through 
some threatening breakers during the opening and most trying hours of 
the convention. " 



Subject to the call of the International Congress of 
Socialists, each country, by referendum vote, elects two sec- 
retaries to represent the organized socialists of their respective 
countries on the International Committee, with headquarters 
established at Brussels, Belgium. This secretaryship is the 
highest office within the gift of the United States socialists. It 
places the incumbent in the forefront of the international move- 
ment. These secretaries are the only authorities recognized 
in international correspondence. In 1902, by the referendum 
vote, George D. Herron was elected to serve this country, over 
all other nominees for the office. 

Mr. Herron has made the largest financial contributions te 
the socialist movement within late years. Not only has he 
contributed hundreds of dollars to the organization directly, 
but also through the " Socialist Fellowship" he has given largely 
to the support of socialist editors, secretaries and speakers. 

We have in previous chapters presented quotations from 
the pen of Mr. Herron, which are proof positive that he is a 
"class conscious" socialist and an eloquent and able expounder 
of socialist principles. 

George D. Herron was a Congregationalist minister, with 
a pastorate in Burlington, Iowa. Mrs. E. D. Rand, a wealthy 
member of his congregation, becoming infatuated with the work 
of Rev. George D. Herron, established for him a "Chair of 
Applied Christianity" at Grinnell University, Iowa. 



276 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

The establishment of this chair was specifically for the 
purpose of " developing a social philosophy and economic 
from the teachings of Jesus, or the application of his teachings 
to social problems and institutions." Finding that his teach- 
ings were in conflict with the demands of Grinnell University, 
Dr. Herron was forced, by the authorities, to resign, and the 
chair was abolished. 

One year before his ordination as a minister of the Con- 
gregational Church Dr. Herron married Miss Mary Everhard 
of Ripon, Wisconsin. Five children were born of this union, 
four of whom are now living. 

From the time his "chair of Applied Christianity" was 
endowed, Miss Rand, the daughter of the lady who financially 
created the chair, became his "constant companion." Later 
the ladies and Dr. Herron traveled together in foreign countries, 
Herron supporting himself by the bounty of Miss Rand and 
her mother. Finally becoming thoroughly inoculated with 
the sex virus of socialism, Dr. Herron left his wife and four 
children, pressed his wife to sue for a divorce, stopped 
the detail of the court procedure by giving his children some 
of Miss Rand's money, and turned a new page by marrying 
Miss Rand. 

From the time of the "socialist wedding" the movement 
profited still more, financially and otherwise, from Dr. Herron 's 
patronage, for Mrs. Elizabeth D. Rand, the mother of the second 
Mrs. Herron, contributed monies with a lavish hand to socialist 
papers, to general propaganda, while enabling Dr. Herron to 
devote himself entirely to the movement. 

Mrs. Rand died (July, 1905), bequeathing $200,000 to the 
movement for the establishment of a school "to teach social 
science from the standpoint of international socialism." The 
trustees of the fund are Mr. and Mrs. Herron and Morris Hill- 
quit. They organized The Socialist Society, which now holds 
the title to the property to which many of the leading socialists 
of the country belong. 

The Rand school was established in the city of New York, 
where a corps of teachers are maintained to instruct adult 
persons in the economic and philosophic doctrine of Marx and 
Engels, which have not been materially modified by the subse- 



Socialist Leaders. 277 

quent leaders. We quote from the Rand School Bulletin, sub- 
joining a partial list of teachers: 

"The American Socialist Society, an incorporated body, holds title 
to the property of the Rand School and administers its affairs. The 
fidelity of the school to the purpose of its founder is assured by the con- 
stitution of the society, which restricts membership to 'persons who 
formally declare themselves in full accord with the principles and tactics 
of the modern socialist movement.' The officers of the society are 
Algernon Lee, president; Morris Hillquit, treasurer, and W. J. Ghent, 
secretary.'! 

Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, Prof. D. S. Muzzey, Prof. Charles 
A. Beard, Columbia; Prof. Wm. Noyes; Prof. I. A. Hourwich; 
Prof. Vida D. Scudder, Wellesley; Dr. Emily Green Balch, 
Wellesley; Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gillman; William N. 
Leiserson; George R. Kirkpatrick; Algernon Lee; Robert W. 
Bruere; JohnSpargo; Morris Hillquit; W. J. Ghent; Benjamin 
C. Gruenberg; Florence Kelly. 

John Spargo, editor of The Comrade, just after the divorce 
case, writing of Dr. George D. Herron said : 

"Those of us who gather ... in the dingy editorial rooms of 
The Commonweal, feel that this man will come forth out of the fire of 
persecution to be the greatest leader of the American socialist movement. 
The unanimous call, weeks afterward, that he preside at the opening of 
the great 'Unity Convention' bears witness to the growth of that feeling. 

"On his return from his European tour in 1900, Professor Herron 
made a notable declaration for uncompromising socialism at a mass 
meeting held in Chicago by the Social- Democratic Party — the first meet- 
ing in the Presidential Election campaign — when he confessed that for 
eight years he had been voting for the candidates of the Socialist Labor 
Party. Since that time he has thrown himself heartily into the work of 
the party, and his later writings show that his emancipation from the 
bonds of ecclesiasticism is complete. A clear, cultured thinker, equally 
powerful with voice and pen, he has laid all his magnificent powers upon 
the altar of the class-conscious revolutionary socialist movement of the 
world.'' (New York, September, 1901.) 

Since "self-expression," not self -sacrifice, is a key note of 
contrast between the Christian and the socialist creeds, the 
standing of Dr. Herron in the Congregational church and his 
standing in the socialist party at the same time should prove 
of interest, we think: 



278 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"The council called by the Congregational church of Grinnell, la., 
to advise concerning the church membership and ministerial standing of 
Mr. George D. Herron convened at Grinnell, June 4. 

"The following statement was presented by the committee represent- 
ing the church: 

- 

"Statement of the Committee to the Council. 

- 

"The committee appointed by the First Congregational Church of 
Grinnell, in accordance with the resolution adopted at the Grinnell Asso- 
ciation held at Baxter, la., April 30, 1901, for the purpose of calling a council 
to advise as to what shall be done with reference to the ministerial standing 
and church membership of George D. Herron, have communicated with 
Mr. Herron in regard to the calling of a mutual council. 

• . • . . . 

"It has been made to appear by the recent divorce proceedings between 
Mr. and Mrs. Herron at Algona, la., and his subsequent marriage to Miss 
Rand that has relations to and treatment of his wife and children have been 
such as are, to say the least, unbecoming a Christian minister. . . . 

"There is evidence that the divorce proceedings, while brought in the 
name of Mrs. Herron as plaintiff, were, in fact, instituted by Mr. Herron 
and against the wish and protest of Mrs. Herron. 

"Since March 21, 1901, at which time the divorce was granted, Mr. 
Herron has married Miss Carrie Rand, a lady with whom he has for the 
past nine years been on terms of intimate acquaintance. This conduct 
on the part of Mr. Herron seems to be at variance with the teachings of 
Christ as recorded in Matt. 19: 8, 9; Luke 16: 18. 

"If the council so desire the committee can introduce evidence tending 
to substantiate the statements herein contained. 

"Mr. Herron has sent to the committee a communication in the nature 
of a defense, which will, at his request, be submitted to the council. 

"The testimony tended to show that Mrs. Herron began helpful service 
for her husband while they were together in Ripon College, reading his les- 
sons for him when his eyes were weak, and that she had continued to show 
the same self-denying care during their married life. She completed her 
college course — though Mr. Herron did not finish his — and was considered 
one of the finest students, well-equipped to be the companion of a literary 
worker. Five children were bora to them, of whom four are living. Mrs. 
Herron has been a faithful and hardworking mother, taking upon her- 
self many of the home cares usually shared by a husband. She was 
always solicitious for her husband and for his comfort. When visiting or 
receiving calls her conversation was almost sure to turn to him and his 
work. When he was present in the home everything was. planned for his 
comfort and convenience. Mrs. Herron was much interested in her 
husband's work, believing that he was a man with a special mission. 
And so far as could be gathered from her conversation and public utter' 



Socialist Leaders. 279 

\ - 

ances, she was in full accord with his teaching. During his long absences 
from home she went into society but little, spending much time in reading 
the books he recommended and taking up new studies in order that she 
might be able to enter into his life as much as possible. . ' 

"'During the last few years, when it became apparent that Mr. 
Herron was seeking companionship and affection elsewhere, Mrs. Herron 
showed no signs of resentment or jealousy — so far as her neighbors could 
judge — but only the burden of sorrow, and tried to retain her husband's 
love by serving him more faithfully. The statement of Miss Parker 
that 'she did everything but breathe for her husband' when he was at 
home raised a smile in the council, but it was the expression of an honest 
conviction. 

"Mrs. Herron had said little about divorce except under the seal of 
confidence, but enough was known to convince the council that she was 
an applicant for divorce only in a technical sense, not consenting to be- 
come such until fully convinced that it would be impossible to maintain 
the integrity of her home. 

"Mr. J. P. Lyman, chairman of the church committee, presented a 
certified copy of the court records in the divorce proceedings, showing 
that the petition for divorce, the answer and the decree were all filed on 
the same day at Algona, la., while Mr. Herron was in New York City. 
The petition alleged that 'the defendant without cause or excuse deserted 
this plaintiff and refused to longer live and cohabit with her as her hus- 
band,' also that he 'has been guilty of such cruel and inhuman treatment 
as to seriously impair her health and to endanger her life.' In his decision 
the judge declared, 'the court finds for the plaintiff and finds that the 
^allegations of her petition are true.' A divorce was granted, giving to 
Mrs. Herron the custody of the four children. This was on March 21, 
1 90 1. Evidence in the form of a business letter signed 'Carrie Rand 
Herron' was produced to show the truth of the published reports that Mr. 
Herron had already contracted a second marriage with the woman who 
had been on such terms of intimate association with him for at least nine 
years. 

"The council adopted the following as the result of its deliberations. 
"The Finding of the Council. 

1v3C0 ... - .... .... - 

"At a council held in the First Congregational Church of Grinnell, 
June 4, 1 90 1, to consider the right to church membership and ministerial 
standing of George D. Herron, the following findings were rendered : 

" 1 . That the charge of immoral and unchristian conduct is sustained 
by the findings of the court which, at Algona, on March 21 , 1901 , granted 
a decree of divorce to Mary Everhard Herron from her husband, on the 
grounds of desertion and inhuman treatment. 

"2. The same charge is further sustained by evidence presented 
to this council, showing that George D. Herron's manner toward the wife 



280 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

who consecrated her life to the effort to make him happy, relieve him of 
care and aid him in fulfilling what she believed to be his high calling, has 
been that of unfeeling and selfish indifference and, at least since 1896, 
of studied neglect culminating in a heartless desertion and the final 
tragedy of divorce. 

"3. The same charge is still further sustained by confessions con- 
tained in the paper written by Mr. Herron in his own defense and read to 
the council. In this paper he denies the right of society to sanction or 
undo a marriage tie between man and woman and presents a view of the 
conjugal relation, of fatherhood and the home which is abhorrent to en- 
lightened Christian sentiment, and which confirms the council in the 
opinion that this action of George D. Herron is simply the criminal deser- 
tion of a worthy wife and devoted mother by a man who has deliberately 
falsified his marriage vows. 

"In view of these findings it is 

"Resolved (1), That we recommend to the Grinnell Association that 
the name of George D. Herron be dropped from its roll of membership. 

"Resolved (2), That we recommend to the First Congregational 
Church of Grinnell that the name of George D. Herron be dropped from 
its roll of membership. 

"Resolved (3), That we express our conviction that George D. 
Herron has forfeited all right to be known by the churches of our faith 
and order as a minister of the gospel, and that he is by vote of this council 
deposed from the Christian ministry.'. (The Congregationalist, June 15, 
1901.) 

Comment on the proceedings of the council seems to us 
entirely unnecessary. Suffice it to say, amen to their efforts 
to maintain the integrity of the family against the world-wide 
encroachments upon it by atheism in one or another form. 

Editorially The Congregationalist and Christian World 
(Boston, June 15, 1901) gives voice to its sentiments: 

"DR. HERRON AND THE INTEGRITY OF THE FAMILY. 

"The essential viciousness of Dr. Herron's position is its unrestrained 
individualism. The right of a man to order his life purely to further what 
he fancies to be his own largest welfare is forever balanced by his right 
and duty to relate it to society in such a way that he will fulfill all reasonable 
obligations to others, and particularly to those most intimately connected 
with him. To disown the claims of the social order is nothing short of 
consummate selfishness, however much such behavior may be disguised 
in beautiful phrases. 

"Dr. Herron's letter is worth reading, simply that one may see what 
a man with his back to the wall defying all the delicate and noble instincts 



Socialist Leaders. 281 

of human society, can say in his defense. No man ever put more effort 
or eloquence into an apology for his conduct. An affluent vocabulary, 
an uncommon deftness in argumentation, a misguided ethical passion and a 
gratuitous assumption of personal martyrdom are all brought into re- 
quisition to buttress his position. But the flimsy structure of his labori- 
ous logic falls the moment that the solid fact that he has tired of his 
wife and given himself to another woman touches it. There never has 
been in civilized society but one verdict upon such conduct. There 
never will be. There never can be so long as sane men dwell in a uni- 
verse such as we understand ours to be. 

"We. are put into the world primarily, not to agitate in behalf of 
single tax or of co-operative industry or a socialistic commonwealth, but 
first of all to be good husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and 
daughters, brothers and sisters. No degree of activity and apparent 
success in efforts looking to the public welfare can atone for lack of fidelity 
and tenderness in these primary human relations. The family always 
has been and always will be the sphere in which men get their best dis- 
cipline and their largest growth. Not until a man is trying to do his 
utmost to fulfill the obligations imposed by kinship with others ought he 
to venture out into the wide field of action in which the general good of 
society is the object sought. Fortunately, we are not without men and 
women who are loyal both to the family and to society and who are serv- 
ing both with unflagging zeal. From such persons as these and from them 
alone will proceed the impulses that will lift the world's burdens and 
right its wrongs." 

We now submit the communication of Rev. G. D. Herron 
to the Congregational church council, which was printed in 
the International Socialist Review. 

LETTER TO GRINNELL CHURCH COMMITTEE: 

New York, May 24, 1901. 
"To the Committee appointed by the Congregational Church of Grinnell, 

Iowa, to call a council of churcltes to inquire into my ministerial standing 

and church membership. 

"Brethren — I received your request that I join with you in calling 
a council to inquire into my standing as a minister and as a member of 
your church. I could not join with you in this call, nor do I feel it essential 
that I should. You are a body of Christian gentlemen, seeking to do 
what you believe to be your whole duty, and the council called by you 
will be as impartial, and as eager to do what seems to it right, as if I had 
joined in the call I could not hope to include a friendly church in the 
council; for, however sad the reflection on myself to say so, I have 
no friend that I know of in the Congregational Church or ministry 
of Iowa, 



282 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"When I turn from the desires of a father's heart to what is best for 
the children themselves, I think their choice of their mother would be 
wise ; for they will have a good mother, and the life of a man given to the 
socialist revolution cannot fail to be more or less the life of an outcast, as 
the revolution intensifies and arrays a ruling class against a working class 
in a final issue and crisis. 

"In this connection, I would like to say that I do not see why the 
matter of adequate financial provision should have been made a basis of 
complaint or discussion. Certainly, it was the right and duty of the 
mother of these children to accept such provision, in simple justice to her- 
self and them, as it was my privilege and duty to provide to the utmost. 
As to what friends enabled me to do this, that is a matter into which the 
public has no right to inquire, so long as those concerned are satisfied. 

"As a council, you are acting in defense of what you believe to be the 
sacredness of the family institution, against which I am to you an offender. 
In order that your action on this point may be complete, let me say to you 
that / do not believe that the present marriage system is sacred or good. It 
rather seems to me to be the destruction of the liberty and love and truth which 
make life sacred and worth living. If love and truth are the basis of morality, 
then a marriage system which makes one human being the property of another 
without regard to the well-being of either the owned or the owner, seems to me 
to be the very soul of blasphemy and immorality. (Italics ours.) The 
family founded on force is a survival of slavery, and one of the expressions 
of the slave-principles on which our whole civilization is built. It is a 
mode of the superstition which thinks it good for human beings to own 
each other, and good for the race to have all its sources and tools of life 
owned by the few who are strong and cunning enough to possess them. 
The ethics of the legally and ecclesiastically enforced family make it 
possible for a man to live a life of monstrous wrong, of ghastly falsehood, 
even of unbridled lust, and yet be highly moral according to the standard 
by which we are judged. The same standards condemn and disgrace the 
purest expressions of comradeship, if they cross the conventions or for- 
get the decrees of custom. Free and truthful living is thus made a tragedy, 
to have overwhelming and revengeful retribution added unto it, while 
slave-living and falsehood may be rewarded with world-blessings and 
ecclesiastical canonization. I thoroughly believe in the vital and abiding 
union of one man with one woman as a true basis of the family life. But 
we shall have few such unions until we have a free family. Men and women 
must be economically free — free to use their powers to the fullest extent — free 
from the interference of legal and ecclesiastical force, and free to correct their 
mistakes, before we can have a family that is noble, built on unions that are 
good. (Italics ours). Lives that are essentially one, co-operative in the 
love and truth that make oneness, need no law of state or church to bind 
or keep them together. Upon such, the imposition of force is a distinc- 
tion and a blasphemy. On the other hand, no law in the universe has a 
right to keep together those who are not vitally and essentially one. It 
is only in freedom that love can find its own, or truth blossom in the soul, 



Socialist Leaders. 283 

or other than a slave-individuality unfold. It is the business of society 
to see to it that every child is surrounded "by the full and free resources 
of a complete life ; it is the business of society to see to its own fatherhood 
and motherhood of every child, as well as to hold every parent responsible ; 
it is the business of society to know every child of woman as a free and 
legitimate child of God, and welcome it as an inheritor of the reverence 
and resources of the earth ; but it is not the business of society to unite 
or separate men and women in the marriage relation. Love must be set 
free and liberty must be trusted, if noble and beautiful homes are to 
spring up to make the earth a garden of truth and gladness. The coercive 
family system is filling the earth with falsehood and hypocrisy, misery 
and soul-disintegration, and is perpetuating the morality of slaves and 
liars. In times past, men have thrown away their lives in protest against 
what seemed to them tyranny and wrong. There is a new world coming 
whose way can be made ready only by those who will throw away their 
good names, and accept, perhaps, everlasting disgrace, as the price of their 
protest. 

"And if I willingly accept all the obloquy and retribution which 
church and society may visit upon me, in making a protest against a 
system that seems to me destructive to all true morality, and to the very 
citadel of the soul's integrity, then my protest has earned its right to be 
heard. 

"It seems useless and hopeless to speak to religious or moral custo- 
dians about the agony of the soul for self -revelation ; about the increasing 
and intensifying struggle of man to outwardly express what he inwardly 
is. Our morality is so altogether based on appearances, on calculated 
action, and has so little to do with truth or reality, that the spectacle of 
a man trying to be simply honest with the world, in order to be honest 
with his soul, causes him to be taken for either a criminal or a mad-man. 
Civilization, with its network of falsehood and suspicion, of 
retribution and revenge, is a sort of world-conspiracy against the soul's 
integrity and against individuality. Yet the right of a single soul to fully 
and freely express itself, to live out and show forth all the truth about 
itself, so that it need have within itself no hid thing, but be naked before 
the universe and not be ashamed, is infinitely more important than the 
whole fabric of civilization. The travail of the soul to become honest, 
the struggle of man to come to himself, is far more vital and revolutionary, 
more menacing to what we call civilization, than any questioning of the 
marriage system, or the questioning of any institution. You may be sure 
that when the son of man rises out of the common life, there will not be 
left a shred of any kind of institutional bond, and there will be no sentinels 
on the walls of the soul's possibilities. 

"When publicly placed in a position where I must either affirm or 
deny the unity of my life with hers, (Miss Rand), or else evade the interroga- 
tion, I can be truthful to the world in no other way than by establishing 
the fact of this unity. After this storm of savage and senseless wrong 
has broken upon her, after the world has taken everything it values from 



284 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

her, after all she has given and lost, after she has been the source and 
inspirer of so much of such work as I have done, after I have lived for so 
many years because she has lived also, after she has dedicated my life 
to the socialist cause of freedom, for me to leave her to face the world 
alone, or to wait an hour after she would permit me to announce her to 
men as my wife, would be for me to commit spiritual suicide, and to try 
to deceive the world in order to win for myself some place or work in it, 
or some fragment of faith from it. If this confession of life is evil to you, 
and to all the world, then let it be evil; if to any one on the earth it is 
good, to that one let it be good. If free and truthful living be the final 
outcome of things, then the outcome will vindicate us. 

"In conclusion let me say, out of justice to you as to myself, that I 
shall not misrepresent your action, nor put it on other than your own 
grounds. . . . I am dismissed from the church and its ministry for what 
you consider to be conduct unbecoming a minister and a gentleman. And 
your view of the life I have lived, with such service as I have tried to 
render, only seems to you to confirm your judgment, to which must be 
added the voluntary testimony of this letter. So I shall accept my 
dismissal in the terms in which you give it, and I shall not try to evade 
the consequence of your decision. ... If anything I may hereafter 
do or say shall be of service to any one or to any cause, it shall be done 
or said with the clear understanding that the church is free from any 
responsibility for such service, and that I am disowned by the church 
because of its judgment upon my life and character. 

' ' Faithfully yours , 

"George D. Herron." 

Surely "self-expression" minus self-sacrifice is by Mr. 
Herron set down with the fullness of egoism ! This masterpiece 
of blasphemous argument, and of insult to the integrity of the 
Christian family, may well serve as the epitome of the socialist 
position relative to the obligations of the husband and father. 
He has none, for a new " sex fondness" rules them out of exist- 
ence. Yet this peddler of gush may be questioned: 

If it be better for your children to be fatherless, upon your 
sickly sentimental reason that " the life of a man given to the 
social revolution" is "the life of an outcast," by what system 
of logic do you enter into marital association with a possible 
mother? Is the answer race suicide? 

We must differ with you, it does concern the public as 
"to what friend enabled" you financially to settle your divorce 
suit! You are a public man, you seek the civil power for the 



Socialist Leaders. 285 

political party of which you are the leader. It is of public 
interest that you enter into association with a woman who 
destroys the happiness of a wife (her sometime household friend) , 
and that four children are made to blush with shame at the 
honored name of father. We, the public, have the right and the 
duty to inquire whence this Judas comes. For the especial 
reason, if none other, that you and your new wife have the 
audacity to insult the institution of the family. No, the crime 
cannot be covered with thirty pieces of silver. 

Mr. Herron's letter was quite at home in the socialist press. 
Reading it, one may well imagine he were reading a chapter 
of Engels, Marx, Bebel, Bax or other socialist classics. We 
are familiar with the thought expressed by Mr. Herron, that: 

"men and women must be economically free . . . free from the 
interference of legal and ecclesiastical force, and free to correct their 
mistakes, before we can have a family that is noble, built on unions 
that are good.". 

And yet it is quite the fashion, by a sleight o' hand, to 
protest against socialists being called free lovers. Socialism 
gains the, we may not say moral, support of many radi- 
cal men who have not yet propagated the socialist doc- 
trine from a party standpoint. This outside force greatly 
aids in maintaining the standing of socialists, of the Mr. 
Herron type, with the rank and file of the organization, for in 
general workmen are led to believe that socialism is merely a 
part, the most essential part, of the labor movement. But 
recently, since Charles Edward Russell as the standard bearer 
waved the red flag in the state of New York (191 1), the out- 
side sympathizers are becoming inside comrades. Following 
the lead of the ''intellectuals" of France, Italy and Spain the cul- 
tivated but morally degenerate gentlemen of the pen are find- 
ing their political home within the socialist movement. 

Divorced from religious teachings, the minds of many 
persons are hopelessy confused by materialism in its manifold 
guises. The assertion that men perforce obey their class in- 
terests robs weak-minded persons of the sense of moral re- 
sponsibility. "He can't help it, it is the way of his class!" 
is a sample of the current application of socialist doctrine. 



286 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Possibly if Mr. Herron had been "economically free" he 
would never have gone to visit the Holy Land hand-in-hand 
with friendship betrayed by lust. Only to think of it! tread- 
ing the paths of the sacred feet of Him who raised marriage to 
the dignity of a sacrament ! Nothing less than moral degen- 
eracy could have made the emotion of these visits less than 
tragic. Possibly economic freedom would have been the 
prop to aid this man in living an honorable life ! 

Yet could a sincere mind believe it upon reading this sick- 
sweet stuff from the hero who left a poor wife and took one 
with money: "For me to leave her (Miss Rand) to face the 
world alone would be for me to commit spiritual suicide." No, 
he could not leave Miss Rand alone — but "his wife, whom he 
had said had been his "living conscience," he could leave; 
not quite alone, for his four children were left fatherless with 
their deserted mother. Is not this vile cant? Is it not much 
too sweet to be wholesome ? 

While the proof is open that spiritual death must have 
been in evidence some time before Mr. Herron could say of 
Miss Rand : " She has dedicated my life to the socialist cause 
of freedom." 

By what authority? Does a "spiritual union" after a 
divorce constitute the woman the head of the free family, 
under the free religion, in the free society of the free land? 
Or is the woman the man's boss only along the socialistic wfey, not 
on the other side? Really we are in doubt, as our authority 
is the over-much freedom in the Coming Nation (3-28-1903): 

"If it is a free land we are after, or a free religion, or a free family, 
or a wholly free society, we shall find it at the other side of socialism, or 
along the socialistic way.'! 

At any rate, the other side of socialism has not been waited 
for, and the "pest of socialism" seems to have plenty of "free- 
dom" for desecrating the family and for inciting the down- 
trodden poor to mutiny and to rage. 

Mr. Herron should understand that we have no personal 
spleen in the matter of his "free family" along the socialistic 
way. His processes were, no doubt, quite within the civil 
code as the sometime reverend William Thurston Brown re- 



Socialist Leaders. 287 

cently pointed out, we have never said otherwise. What we 
have said, and what we do say here is, that Mr. Herron's con- 
duct is the very concreting of socialist principles unto prac- 
tical life, so far as circumstances will permit. This, we hope, 
has put a hindrance in the way of making converts. Evi- 
dently so, as Mr. Brown protests (The Christian Socialist, 
2-2-1911), that: 

"This misrepresentation, which probably originated with Mrs. 
Martha Moore Avery and David Goldstein, is merely a part of that mass 
of misrepresentation which the slaves of convention heap upon all who 
refuse to conform to established customs." 

' ' ' ' ' 
Precisely I Candor would clear the issue. Mr. Herron's 

letter to the Congregational Church makes it clear that he 
does not " believe that the present marriage system is sacred 
or good." This is what we desire should be clearly under- 
stood by the general public as the socialist doctrine regard- 
ing monogamy, to phrase it scientifically, or to speak religiously 
the Christian family. Of course, we know that sociologists 
are generally aware that free love is strictly in conformity 
with the philosophies enunciated by the founders and by the 
promoters of modern socialism. 

But because the general public are not so well informed, 
nor the camp followers of the socialist movement itself, - we 
take this means of warning the body politic of the danger. 
Besides the direct influence of the immoral lives of many of 
the leaders, the literature typifying their sex views is increas- 
ing rapidly. New books from socialist and radical authors 
put out a psychology that is entirely at one with " A Socialist 
Wedding" (International Socialist Review, July, 1901) written 
by Leonard D. Abbott. We quote : 

"We were gathered together, we of the inner circle of comradeship, 
on the last Saturday evening in May. The fragrance and blossom of 
spring flowers seemed to transform our rooms into a fairy garden; and 
the strains of a primitive love melody, as they drifted to us were full of 
mystery and beauty. 

"Our comrade, George D. Herron, arose, care-worn and sorrowful as 
one who has passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, yet strong- 
hearted and gladsome withal; and beside him stood Carrie Rand, clad in 
pure vestal white and bearing lilies-of- the- valley in her hand. 'We be- 



288 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

lieve, friends, in fellowship,' he said, 'and because we believe that fellow- 
ship is life we have asked a few of you to let us share with you the fellow- 
ship and sacrament of the unity of life which we wish to now announce to 
you. For many years this unity of life has made us one in fact, but now 
we wish this unity to become manifest unto the world, and it is to announce 
to you this marriage of our souls, which is to us a reality before the 
foundation of the world and which we can conceive of as having no ending, 
that we have asked you to kindly come together to-night.' Miss Rand 
responded : 'This is the day and hour which we have chosen to announce to 
you and the world our spiritual union, which is a fact in the heart of God.' 

"The host of the evening, Dr. Charles Brodie Patterson, editor of 
The Arena and Mind, next made a brief address. Dr. Patterson was 
followed by the Rev. William Thurston Brown, of Plymouth Church, 
Rochester, whose 'Annunciation Service' was a poem in prose. It seemed 
entirely fitting that this tried and true comrade, whose best labor and 
thought for many years has been given to the socialist cause, should be 
here to participate in the dedication of these two lives to the socialist 
movement. He said: 

M 'I cannot but feel — as all of us must to-day — the impotence of wordj 
fittingly to express or announce to the world that which this occasion 
means. This is the time and place for the muse of a poet, the speech of .♦ 
god; the office of priest or magistrate were an intrusion here. Better 
than all would it be if the fact of which we here are conscious might be 
announced to the world in the sweet strains of some wordless music. 

14 'But since these dear friends and comrades have honored me with 
the task of speaking for them a word of annunciation concerning this 
sacred consummation of their life, I joyfully respond. And the one word 
which above all others impresses itself upon me as suggestive of that 
which brings us here is the old word 'sacrament.' I know it comes to us 
from the buried years a-drip with blood and moldy with superstition; 
and yet, it is a human word, and through it throbs the yearning and 
struggle and climb of a race. It names an age-long groping after truth — 
a gleam of the divine — a rift in the clouds disclosing the glory that bathes 
and interpenetrates the universe. That which calls us here to-day is a 
sacrament. Not in any conventional sense, but in the elemental signi- 
ficance of the word — a significance which reflects the mind and being of 
the Eternal and the Infinite. 

"' Nowhere has the religious institution so nearly approached the 
frontiers of vital truth as in conceiving marriage to be a sacrament. 
But nowhere has it departed so far from all that is divine and ennobling 
as in supposing that any word of priest or prelate can be sacramental. 
Neither statute nor official, civil or religious, can ever create this sacred 
thing. Neither has it the smallest sanction to give to that which is sacred, 
if at all, by the supreme fiat of a pure and perfect love. The divine is not 
in legislature or council, church or state. It abides forever in human life. 
Human life alone incarnates God — and laws and civilizations are tolerable 
only in the measure of their recognition and service of that life. 



Socialist Leaders. 289 

" 'We are not here to establish a relationship which otherwise would 
not have been. We are not here to inaugurate or consummate a marriage. 
No words of ours or any one's can add to or take from the truth and 
solemnity of the sublime fact of a reciprocal love uniting soul to soul by a 
sanction in presence of which all human enactments seem profane and 
impertinent, for this is the supreme sacrament of human experience. 
There is something about it which transcends all other things and pro- 
claims its inherent divinity. 

" 'Nor are we here to lend our countenance to that divine event of 
which it is our privilege to be witnesses. That which is essentially and 
elementally true gains nothing from the sanction of individuals or states 
or nations. We are not here to perform a sacrament, but to receive one — 
to honor ourselves and enrich all that is best in us by sharing somewhat 
in the truth and beatitude of these dear friends. 

14 'We are here to-day to announce to the world the oneness of two 
human souls in a love that reflects and manifests and reproduces somewhat 
of the essence of that Infinite love which swathes and animates the universe. 
This oneness no more begins to-day than God does. It has no beginning 
and can have no end. The discovery of such oneness is the discovery of 
life — the laying bare the very soul of the Cosmos. Time loses its meaning. 
There is no yesterday and no to-morrow in the married harmony and the 
joyous rhythm of two such souls. There is only an eternal now, and 
life rises above its narrow limitations and seems to merge irr^^ All-living 
and All-loving. Let the fleeting years bring what they may, it cannot 
matter. Love holds all the years that have been or are to be. Its domi- 
nion is universal and its reign eternal. And it lives only to give itself in 
ever-abounding richness to the hungering needs of men. 

'"This is a day of joy — overflowing, unsullied, serene ; a day of hope — 
clear, strong, inspiring; a day of faith — laying bare before the souls of 
men in love's clear light the realities of the eternal world. It is a day of 
courage and cheer. It has for the world only a message of freedom and 
fellowship. It anticipates~the dawn of a higher life for all. It proclaims 
the sancity and omnipotence of love. It asserts the elemental rights of 
man— the rights that blend with duty and irradiate the skies with hope 
and gladness. 

" 'If I have any understanding of what this means, it is supremely a 
gospel. No note of peace or power or purity is wanting. These friends 
of ours announce to-day their marriage. They do so not primarily because 
our faulty human laws require it at their hands, but for a deeper and 
diviner reason. They do not assume that their life belongs to them alone 
— nor even that this supreme affection which has made them one, 
disclosed to them the face of God, and transfigured all this earthly life 
with His shining footprints, is theirs to hoard or hide. In asserting the 
limitless freedom and the boundless authority of love they but disclose the 
full-orbed liberty of the sons of God and anticipate a world's emancipation. 
They do not announce that they have now separated their life from the 
rest of the world. They announce a fuller, deeper, richer harmony with 



2oo Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children, 

that divine life which is emergent in the unfolding aspirations of the world, 
than could have been theirs as separate individuals. 

'"Inasmuch, therefore, as George D. Herron and Carrie Rand are thus 
united together by the bond of a reciprocal love, I announce thatthey are 
husband and wife by every law of right and truth,' and I bespeak for them 
the fervent benediction of all true souls and the abiding gladness that 
dwells in the heart of God forever.' 

"As comrade Brown had concluded, Mrs. Rand stepped forward, 
kissed George D. Herron and his bride, and, with a voice trembling with 
emotion, invoked blessing on their marriage. 

"Each one of the fourteen guests present was now invited to make a 
verbal offering to the consummation of this love union. Richard Le 
Galienne, a poet famous on two continents spoke first. 

. " 'All the friends that Mr. and Mrs. Herron love,' he said ,. 'will love 
them forever, and. will love them all the better because they have had the 
courage to stand up and say they love each other and that love is all the 
marriage they need. I feel very honored that I had the opportunity. of 
being present on this momentous occasion, and only wish that I had had 
longer notice, in order to have prepared an epithalamium worthy of its 
dignity.' 

"Two of the Social Democratic comrades spoke next, emphasizing 
the fact that the marriage meant, above all, more complete consecration 
to socialism. 'The peculiarly happy thing to me to-night,' said William 
Mailty, now (190 1) national secretary of the socialist party, 'is the 
knowledge that these two comrades of ours are working shoulder to 
shoulder in the world-wide movement for the emancipation of the toilers 
—a movement that is destined to usher in the universal life~ of leisure 
and love for all men.' _ g ,..:.-_—- eh £ :: :-: 

j* "The last speaker was Franklin H. Wentworth, formerly editor 
of" the Socialist Spirit. 'Having shared the joy and sorrow, the "trials 
and problems, of my two comrades here,' he said; It is perhaps fitting that 
I should say the last word on this occasion, and that this word should be a 
word of 3 personal affection and comradeship. And yet I must confess 
that the feeling of joy which I have to-night relates not so directly to 
them as to the cause, in the service of which we are all enlisted. It seems 
such a mighty triumph of truth and sincerity in the world that the cause 
must be helped by this union. I believe that the high service of each will 
be helped by the face of these two souls working side by side in mutual 
s ustainment , united— yet free . I feel this strongly -because of the strength 
and uplift which has come into my own life through my comradeship, with 
my own true and noble mate. In the very fact that so large a number of 
persons as are here assembled can be inspired by the same ideal, j see. a 
demonstration that the truth Is beginning to force its way, and dramatize 
itself in reference to every human institution. There seems in the gather- 
ing of such a company a hint of the dawning of the day when the spirit 
of freedom shall rule the world—freedom of the body, and freedom of the 
soul. - . . . 



Socialist Leaders. 291 

" 'Now, in conclusion, there is a personal word I wish to say: I wish 
to pay a tribute of loving admiration to the woman who was already 
standing for human freedom when most of us here were children; a 
woman who all her life long has been far ahead of her time; who has 
steadfastly stood against all forms of hypocrisy and organized wrong. 
In her girlhood life this woman was scoffed at because she was an aboli- 
tionist—then the most bitterly hated of all reformers. In her middle 
life she was jeered at first as a free republican and afterwards as a free 
trader ; and now in the time of her age we find her standing bravely 'mid 
those who believe that the world should take another step toward human 
freedom, namely, the socialists. In her girlhood she worked for the 
freedom of the chattel slave, and then lived to see the world come halting 
after her, accepting the truth she saw. And I believe there is no more 
fitting prayer which I can offer in her behalf to-night, or which will find 
a more appreciative response in the staunch soul of Mrs. Rand herself 
than that she may be spared to witness at least the beginnings of the 
World's industrial emancipation.' 

"The gathering broke up, and finally, as a sweet benediction, the 
bride herself took her seat at the piano and played to us for awhile, 
pouring out her soul in the interpretation of one of Beethoven's greatest 
sonatas. And as she played, the memory of a ghoulish press, of human 
vultures, of slave-marriage, of cruel capitalism, was blotted out. We 
saw only the vision of the New Life of Socialism, when the love that made 
this union holy shall be the only basis of marriage, and when this love, 
stretching out, shall embrace the common life of the world." 

It is the counterfeit which deceives! The marriage that 
is not a marriage — not a sacrament. It is the counterfeit, the 
employment of holy words for impure uses which makes the 
devil formidable. Yet it is a tribute to God from the forces 
of evil when a modernistic interpretation of what is eternally 
fixed in design is made, by evolutionary action, to approach 
the "fortress of vital truth." That same vital truth being 
the sacrament of marriage, not an adulterous union which the 
" inner circle of comradeship " were celebrating. It is certainly 
interesting to note that as human reason insists upon a per- 
manent union as the married state, that the poetical instincts 
even at a pairmg-at -pleasure celebration forgets the facts, 
that monogamy has been broken and a home deserted to fur- 
nish the principal actors, for the feast. So self-deception 
hangs out the corruption of the "inner circle" with noth- 
ing less than an amazing, almost a paralyzing impudence 
to the view of an admiring world. Insisting as against the very 
opposite conditions which are the necessary preparation that 



292 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

this legal piece of free love is a sacramental union. The breaker 
and the deserter of a home were said to be taking upon them- 
selves the "supreme sacrament of human experience," about 
which, it was alleged, "there was something which proclaims it 
inherent divinity. " But the simple facts in the case proved it to 
be a piece of heartless cruelty lashed on by the love of the flesh. 

Judas' betrayal of his master unto death for gold was a 
cheap material bargaining with the devil against our Blessed 
Lord, but this proclaimed "oneness'' of two human souls be- 
fore the foundation of the world puts the treachery of Judas 
to the blush for shame of its crudeness against the refinement 
of blasphemy seemingly of second nature to the inner circle 
of the self-made elect. This man-made "oneness" should in 
honor still be twoness before men. 

There is no doubt that this "time loses its name." That 
the soul in sin is dead to time is a truth of Christian philoso- 
phy. But if before repentance, reformation and forgiveness 
time shall be no more with the sinful soul then no more dead 
time, but the action of eternal damnation were already be- 
gun. Our Blessed Lord came to call sinners, not the just to 
repentance. Truly if one shall contrast this event — "A So- 
cialist Wedding" — which is held up, by this political atheist 
force, as ideal before the public gaze, with the underlying facts 
in the case the hideous skeleton shall come forth in its filth 
from behind the glowing gases. 

The International Socialist Review has correctly described 
it "A Socialist Wedding." Socialist George D. Herron, the 
hero, the deserter of the marriage bond and the betrayer of 
the family, rises, out of "the Valley of the Shadow of Death" 
to give poetic testimony of his guilt. "For many years this 
unity of life has made us one in fact . . . it is to announce 
to you this marriage of our souls, which is to us a reality be- 
fore the foundation of the world." Realities a little closer 
to the issue were needed to tie honor at home — the reality of 
the woman he had deserted and the children he had disgraced 
would have been a much healthier vision for the contemplation 
of this sin-struck man. 

The socialist heroine then arises and says: "We . . . 
announce to the world our spiritual union." What. God hath 



Socialist Leaders. 293 

joined together let no man put asunder — this is the spiritual 
Law. Woe be to them who desert this command of God, 
flattering themselves that the petty passions of a day can en- 
dure against His Will. 

The socialist, Rev. William Thurston Brown, arose to 
dedicate these ''two lives to the socialist movement." A 
most fitting cause for the breakers of home and family! A 
most fitting arena to display the disruption of faith born of 
materialist standards. "Priest or magistrate were an intru- 
sion here." Indeed it is ever out of sight of the representation 
of the Law that license is committed. "This oneness no more 
begins to-day than God does." This is the brazen tongue of 
brass ; it is the voice of the tinkling cymbals of false gods. 

The blasphemy of this "Socialist Wedding" is self-evi- 
dent. But it is veiled from the " socialist mind " by the glamour 
of false gods, who are invoked in the most extravagant language 
by the clerical collar socialists. A dishonored union alleged 
to have been consummated " before the foundation of the world. " 
It is amazing that such intellectual drunkenness can stand on 
its legs. 

Let us look back a little: After nine years of married life 
Mr. Herron publishes a book with an acknowledgment of 
moral helpfulness in language which, even at this period, shows 
a lack of self-control, a tendency to redundancy in expression 
to say the least. " I dedicate this 

A PLEA FOR THE GOSPEL 

1892 

to my wife Mary Everhard Herron 
who has been to me a living conscience." 

Having exposed his "living conscience" to the mock of 
the world, a reflection were now worth while: whether the 
example set by those of the "privileged classes" in buying di- 
vorces is or not the wickedest and most corrupting influence 
afloat upon this spiritually barren age ? 

"We privileged classes are wickedly insensible to the fact that, 
to the majority of human beings in what we call Christendom, the sensa- 
tions of drink and sexuality are the only experiences which make life 



294 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

interesting; the only things that give anticipation and romance to life; 
the only sacraments of human fellowship, save the common misery and" 
poverty," ("Between Caesar and Jesus/1 George D. Herron, page 83.) 

It were well to consider! Is it obedience to Caesar— to 
atheism, to mammon, to sex sensation, in one word to social- 
ism, which causes a man to leave a "living conscience?" Or 
would obedience to the one true God cause a man to shun such 
a course as the devil is said to shun holy water? 

None but the vile will dance in the flickering light of 
" socialist weddings " when once American citizens are aroused 
to the fact that the socialist party under the war cry of '* free 
land," "free family," "free society" lures the race to its own 
destruction. 

On May 26th, 1901 — two months after George D. Her- 
ron's divorce — The Worker said editorially " . . .some 
capitalist editors and preachers manufactured a scandal about 
Comrade Herron." This is merely the application of social- 
ist tactics in his case. This is The Worker's way of manu- 
facturing socialist sentiment, which later is expected to de- 
velop into "socialist minds." The "capitalist editors" did 
not make a scandal, it was The Worker's "Comrade Herron " 
who made the scandal, The "capitalist editors" have signally 
failed in opening this case up to public view. They have failed 
to realize that "Comrade Herron's" scandal was the socialist 
marriage philosophy put into practice — a little before the 
time, so with necessary hindrances. 

There is no apology from the socialist press. On the con- 
trary its defense is ample, it is even strenuous, and it is coupled 
with its complement a slap at marriage. And this, notwith- 
standing they still fight shy, at times and in places very shy, 
of the term free love which directly tells the whole tale. We 
quote from the Haverhill Social Democrat, July 2, 1901, in 
answer to the Haverhill Gazette, which took George D. Herron 
to task for certain passages in his reply to the Congregational 
Church of Grinnell, Iowa: 

"It is very doubtful, however, whether it was ignorance that prompted 
the editor to assert that the attack on the home by Herron is a fragment 
of European socialism which the American exponents have hitherto 
declared they would not adopt. There is no such thing as European 



Socialist Leaders. 295 

socialism or American socialism. There is only one kind of socialism 
the world over— international socialism, which means everywhere the 
same, among the socialists of Haverhill as well as among the socialists of 
a city of similar size in Germany, France, Belgium or England. 

, "Herron has been quoted by the capitalist press as saying that he 
does riot believe that the present marriage system is sacred or good. We 
repeat the same. The truth cannot be avoided even when dealing with 
questions of a most delicate nature. 

"What is there sacred in the modern home ? Can anything be sacred 
which is based on a lie, or on impurity, or on ignorance? 

"The marriage system to-day is based on impurity, on ignorance and 
on a big lie. People marry not for love ; therefore modern marriage can- 
not be sacred/i 



_ Indeed! this is frankly doctrinal. The marriage system 
is neither "sacred nor good." What then is the present system 
of marriage? The present marriage system is the Christian 
family, resting upon the natural foundation of monogamy, 
elevated to a sacrament by our Blessed Lord Himself. It is 
true that it is in many instances degraded by a mere civil 
marriage ; and it is insulted and denied by divorce. Yet here 
throughout Christendom stands the fact of the sacrament of 
marriage, maintained in its integrity by millions of persons. 
With this overwhelming testimony in full view, socialists look- 
ing only upon the abnormal, upon the debauched conditions 
of life, conclude that the extremes, the degraded states, are 
the ordinary practices of mankind. Hence socialist standards 
for judgment are not merely intellectually absurd, they are 
morally vicious. To the socialist inquiry, what is there " sacred " 
in the modern home may come the simple and truthful reply: 
The self-sacrifice, bringing its heavenly reward here and now 
in the home, of the father and mother in bringing up a family 
of children to the glory of God and to the defense of their country. 
But we know very well that this is altogether too wholesome 
and too sweet for the jaded taste of those who are sick with sin. 
The Advance, the Official Organ of the Socialists of the Pacific 
Coast delivers itself in a tirade against a San Francisco 
newspaper for assuming that George D, Herron and his fol- 
lowers have the habit of " viewing marriage loosely" and of 
"attempting to cancel the line that divided Iionesty from dis~ 
honesty," 



296 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

We are indebted for this phrase; it covers the issue pro- 
foundly in conflict. Socialism maintains that honesty has no 
active opposite dishonesty, so, also, that virtue has no active 
opposite vice. Hence honesty is an evolutionary state ; and the 
"slave marriage" — the permanent union of honest folk — shall 
be "blotted out." For socialist leaders, under the spell of the 
"benediction" in which the bride poured out her soul, 

"saw only the vision of the New Life of socialism, when the love that 
made this union holy shall be the only basis of marriage, and when this 
love, stretching out, shall embrace the common life of the world." 

We quote: 

"The San Francisco Call is rapidly winning for itself the proud dis- 
tinction of being the representative of capitalism par excellence. For un- 
scrupulous falsification and contemptible, sneaking, underhanded methods 
of personal attack is gaining a record that will make the yellow sheets turn 
green with envy. When our Comrade George D. Herron was divorced 
and re-married The Call seized with ghoulish glee upon the misrepresenta- 
tions of the news trust, the Associated Press, gave an extra twist to the 
already distorted facts, and indulged its hatred of socialists in a fanatically 
venomous attack on Herron. Since its first outburst of rage upon a man 
who dared and dares to speak and live the truth, it has ceaselessly 
searched for facts and alleged facts to throw discredit on the socialist 
movement. " 

Here again is the " attempt to cancel the line which divides 
honesty from dishonesty." The San Francisco Call is berated 
for setting forth the very facts that the socialist papers them- 
selves set forth. Socialist leaders are lavish with sacred words 
in describing their ecstasy over the establishment of a "free 
family ' ' along the socialist way, but the San Francisco Call uses 
sacred words as they are meant to be used, not for the vile pur- 
pose to which they were put in describing " a socialist wedding. ' ' 

Just at this point we desire to show that nothing but en- 
comium was meted out to Mr. Herron for daring to say that 
marriage is neither "sacred nor good," and for living up to his 
convictions against the "marriage system" of permanent 
unions. We quote: 

"An Ovation given to Comrade Herron at his last lecturv". 

"The welcome received, came not alone as a tribute to the man who 
has been on the firing line of the Social Revolution for several weeks, the 
victim of a pitiless persecution by an unscrupulous enemy, but also as an 



Socialist Leaders. 297 

endorsement of the principles for the promulgation of which he has 
undoubtedly been made to suffer. ... If any man present doubted 
before the meeting that Comrade Herron understood scientific socialism, 
his doubts must have been completely dispelled. There was no equivoca- 
tion in the presentation of the claims of the socialist movement. There 
could be no compromising, no remedying, no reforming the capitalist 
system. The movement could not tolerate patching up a bad system 
that was wrong in its essence and its foundations, when Comrade Herron 
summed up the case in these terse words: 'We don't want to reform 
anything: we want to revolutionize everything,' he received his answer 
in a shout of approval from his listeners.". (The Worker, 5-19-1901.) 

Truly, Mr. Herron had just met with something of the 
righteous protest which might be expected by one who, in- 
stead of more fully applying Christian principles to modern 
society, as he had promised to do, had let loose the dogs of 
war upon it, beginning with his own family at home. In- 
deed, socialists know their own! They do not want to ''reform 
anything," they want to " revolutionize everything. " Use mod- 
eration? We will use moderation, said Victor Berger ; we'll cut 
off the dog's tail close behind his ears. Which is to say their 
own will is what they desire, not to do God's will. They have 
persuaded themselves that the society which they would 
organize would leave them free from the mandates of the natural 
law; that then in fact the Ten Commandments would be 
obsolete, not merely "unscientific" from being out-of-date, 
by their reckoning. Hence not alone socialists join in the 
ovation to "Comrade Herron," as credit comes from all sorts 
of blasphemers, intellectual and otherwise. From pantheists 
— materialistic and spiritualistic, — from monists of every shade, 
from free thinkers, from those who hate Christ and Him 
crucified for love of us. 

It is true that sincere folk of untrained minds are dazed by 
the blare, blare, blare of brass voices which shout the praises of a 
time that shall be "better than well," all the while giving vent . 
to class hatred. These folk stand all the day idle of mind, * 
waiting for some master call to do duty on the side of right ; a 
servant must be sent into the highways and the byways to 
take them away from the influence of the socialist leaders ; they 
will not come to right reason on their own initiative. 

The great body of trade unionists are the especial prey of 
those who have not the slightest consciousness of being sinners. 



298 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

These bodies are betrayed into meddling with the political issue 
of woman suffrage which is in contradiction to their own basic 
principles and dead against their practical efforts to secure " a 
fair day's pay for a fair day's work. " Hence basically and practi- 
cally the unions recognize the family as the economic unit of 
society by demanding a living wage — a family wage — which 
socialism denies and degrades. The body politic must rue 
the day of its neglect if it shall not make a stand for the just 
rights of the unions and so come practically to their rescue as 
against the powerful psychology of socialist leaders. 

Aye, indeed, the socialist revolution does not imply the 
improvement of society; not any reform whatsoever! It is big 
with the launching of a new society. Blind force has set in 
motion a " free society;" for economic determinism has fashioned 
the race up to the ''present order." Now the class conscious 
leaders will lend a hand to the nonconscious process, and by 
overturning the capitalist class thereby create a" classless society. " 
If, ah ! if, something should not happen to break the point of the 
revolution, as according to Marx it has been broken time and 
again. God grant that it shall be broken by the stampede of 
socialist women themselves, back to the protection within the 
true Fold. It was Christianity which rescued women from 
a heathen degradation and from savage hardship; once again 
woman may hear the voice of command : Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God, andthy neighbor as thyself; and so quit the orgie 
of the revolution. 

What higher authority within the socialist movement of 
this country than The Worker could have put the .seal of ap- 
proval upon ^Comrade Herron's" understanding of scientific 
socialism ? The seal of approval upon the disruption of the 
family as progress along the way? = -': 

And yet another stamp of honor is given to him whose ears 
and eyes are closed to all but the sins which pollute and the 
folly which foolishness engenders. We quote: 

"A Proposed Capitalist Boycott. 

"That there is a motive in the continual publication of false and 
malicious statements by the daily press anent Comrade George D. Herron 
must be apparent to even the most unsophisticated. That the motive 
is a dastardly one and worthy of its source is becoming plainer every day. 



Socialist Leaders. 299 

"The reason for the unanimity of action on the part of papers that 
otherwise appear to conflict in the political and theological views is not far 
to seek. We have before stated that the reason for it can be found in the 
fact that Comrade Herron has not only antagonized the organized church 
in its Christless attitude toward social problems and their solution, but 
because he has struck bold and deep at the foundation of social injustice, 
at the source from which the organized church draws its sustenance — the 
capitalist system of wage slavery. 

''Confirmation for this statement is found in an article in The Outlook 
itself. Commenting in the usual strain upon Comrade Herron' s marriage 
—a marriage morally and legally correct— it closes by saying : 

" 'The only penalty Which an offender can be made to feel is empty 
audience rooms and unmarketable books, and visit this penalty on Dr. 

Herron.' g»V90i v/i£ 

"In these words is laid bare the full animus of the attack upon Com- 
rade Herron. It is not his supposed 'sin' that frightens the slavish souls 
of his detractors— it is the message he brings in the written and spoken 
word that causes fear and alarm among the enemies of the exploited 
working classes. If Comrade Herron can be ostracised by the public, 
if those he wishes to reach and rouse to a proper realization of the mon- 
strous conditions existing to-day could be induced to turn away from him 
with eyes and ears closed to righteousness and reason then his traducers 
would rest well satisfied. 

"But these sages know neither the time nor the people. Comrade 
Herron will be heard, and the people will listen because the time for him, 
and such as he, to speak and be heard is now. The people can no more 
be prevented from hearing the truth of socialism than can the persecution 
of Comrade Herron prevent him from speaking it. And his vindication 
must as surely follow after as it is inevitable that socialism will triumph 
against all the obstacles great and small, that may be thrust in its pathway 
toward victory.". (Editorial, The Worker, 6-6-1901.) 

Socialist leaders ever come to the defense of the knights 
of the " free family." Dozens of instances of national import- 
ance could be cited. That Of Mr. English Walling (191 1) has 
just been to the fore. Although this leader has not been so 
popular as Mr. Herron, due attention and newspaper space was 
lavished upon him for openly defending the right to use one's 
sex as one pleases, regardless of the commands of Almighty 
God, of the consequences to the body politic, or of the disgrace 
and distress of one's partner in "sex fondness." 

Of course the only justification for rehearsing these out- 
rages aga nst decent living is that the general public may read 
as they rUn the truth about the influence upon society of these 



300 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

socialist leaders, whose persistent and forceful propaganda 
seeks the control of our government to their iniquitous ends. 

Mr. Herron was not maligned. No! Neither false nor 
malicious statements were published against him. The truth 
was altogether too bad. The professor of applied Christianity 
had betrayed a public trust. The husband, father, had be- 
trayed his sacred obligations to his family. Under his own 
signature never contradicted nor retracted by that letter flung 
far and wide by the socialist movement, their "lily-white" 
comrade stands self-condemned of all the public press accused 
him of. 

The socialist press should not mislead intelligent men by 
wholesale insinuations and slander against the Congregational 
Church; nor against the "Council;" neither against the gen- 
eral public. 

It was in the interest of public morality and safety to 
" invite an investigation" into the private affairs of this pub- 
lic personage, for his influence was considerable throughout 
the nation. 

Marriage has a twofold character, it is public or social 
and it is private or individual. Consequently if marriage 
be broken, it is the right, nay it is the duty which society owes 
to its present peace and its future welfare, to examine into 
divorce, which because of the hardness of men's hearts has 
been set up within the civil court. But as socialists see in this 
exercise of public duty nothing but "the hypocritical and in- 
consistent . . . pretensions of the corrupt and servile 
defenders and beneficiaries of the present system," it is quite 
useless to expect fair play in discussion upon this or any kindred 
subject. Just as liberty reads license to them, so does billings- 
gate stand for argument. 

Neither can the attempt to give this case an economic 
turn pass current, save with the " socialist mind. " The marriage 
system was not introduced as a part of economic evolution. 
But it was and it is a part of the Original Design of human 
society. Therefore neither an attack upon the church nor the 
insistence that Mr. Herron is a martyr because he has struck 
bold and deep at the foundation of social injustice, can cover 
over the bad influence of this socialist leader upon society. 



Socialist Leaders. 301 

Neither can such dissembling show any vital connection be- 
tween marriage as an established fact of human society and 
the extortions of the capitalist class or with the unnecessary 
hardships of wage earners. 

By insisting that Mr. Herron's marriage is morally correct, 
(of course we do not dispute its legality,) it is evident that 
morality and legality are interchangeable terms in socialist 
philosophy. Or rather, the fact is that within a system of thought 
which repudiates God as the author of phenomena, Who is 
within and yet distinct from His creation, has not the remotest 
place for morality, when properly understood. In truth this " So- 
cialist Wedding" should be censured on less ground than that 
of morality ; on the score of good taste it should be pronounced 
abominable. We submit that the entrance of two women, 
mother and daughter, into a house as especial family friends, 
with the result of a visit by the husband with the two women 
to the holy land, and the later result of the husband's divorce 
— the desertion of the wife — the fatherless children — and the 
still later result of the man's marriage with the younger of the 
women (not to mention the public insults to the dignity and 
sacredness of the marriage institution) should give to Mr. 
Herron's second marriage a tone quite degraded from the man- 
ners becoming to a free and enlightened people. That Mr. Herron 
is a martyr to his convictions, is too cheap even for gulls. 

The pastor of the Congregational Church in Grinnell, Rev. 
E. M. Vittum, over his signature writes as follows: 

"Any statement that he has been persecuted by his church on account 
of heresy or socialism is an absolute falsehood. For some time past there 
have been increasing suspicions as to his moral character, culminating, 
when a divorce, with custody of the children, was granted Mrs. Herron. 
The charges against his character will be dealt with by the church, but 
without haste or excitement. Our church does not believe in lynching." 

A statement drafted by Professor Parker, was signed by 
the mayor and a score of the leading citizens of Grinnell. In 
part it reads as follows: 

"What we know of Mr. Herron's life and efforts to induce his wife to 
ask for a divorce, of the methods understood to have been employed by 
him to bring it about, of her generosity towards him even now, of the 
declarations unfavorable to her which seem to us to have originated with 



jo2 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

him, compels every one here, so far as we know or have learned, to sympa- 
thize with her and to deem him a cruel and faithless husband.". {Con- 

gregationalist, May 4, 1901.) 

----- ■ - - J -■:.:::. 5k • 

I - -. ' . - ■ ' 

Quite in extreme contrast is the estimate of Mr. Herron 
by his comrades, as we have shown. It should be known that 
the socialist papers guard closely their columns in the interest 
of the "class-conscious." They alone are to be trusted to 
give to the rank and file the key note and the words to be sung 
upon special occasions. As a last example we quote from the 
columns of the Haverhill Social Democrat (5-4-1 901) : 

"THE MAN HERRON. 

"Men of any spiritual sensitiveness were compelled instinctively to 
recognize the fact that a prophet had appeared among them— a man with 
a message which the world must hear and reckon with. 

"But it was as impossible for Dr. Herron to be supported by any 
ordinary religious institution, as it was for Jesus to be so supported. 
Jesus could not have been maintained by any institution of his day and 
country. They had no use for him, nor he for them. . . . Not a 
church in the United States or out of it could be founded that would 
tolerate him as its minister. Neither could one be found on the earth 
that would afford a living support to a man like Jesus of Nazareth. 

"But there is a law of adaptation in the universe. Where there is 
demand there will sooner or later be supply. . . . Mrs. Rand felt 
that this preacher was right — divinely right . . . she had been 
waiting to devote her wealth to the purpose of changing the system. 

"The opportunity had come in the person of Dr. Herron. She had 
seen he could not be supported by his church, or any other ^church. ^ She 
felt that he ought to have a wider hearing and therefore established at her 
personal expense 'a department to be known as the Department of Applied 
Christianity,' with Dr. Herron at the head. 

"There was in this experience of Dr. Herron a singular likeness to 
what occurred in the life of Jesus. The only hint we have of the source 
of personal contribution to the support of Jesus is that which mentions 
certain women as giving of their means to defray his living expenses while 
he was preaching in Galilee. When Dr. Herron could no longer hope for 
support from any source whatever in the propagation of his faith, a 
consecrated woman alone insured the continuance of his ministry and 
assured the people of this country the privilege of hearing and reading 
the message which has made Dr. Herron the greatest prophet of modern 
times. . . . Precisely the same thing was true in the case of Jesus. 
He could get a living as a carpenter perhaps ; but after he had begun to 
preach his revolutionary doctrines it was quite possible that his chances 
of getting a living at any trade would be slim. 



Socialist Leaders. 303 

"But the question is whether Jesus had any right to go back to the 
work of a carpenter after he became conscious of the truth that made him 
a prophet. That question admits of but one answer. Jesus would have 
been the most despicable man that ever lived, if, after becoming conscious 
of the truths he taught, he had not fearlessly and at any cost proclaimed 
them. Nothing whatever could excuse him from doing that. 

"The principle is exactly the same in the case of Dr. Herron. He had 
no choice but to give utterance to his convictions. The fact that obedience 
to those convictions might mean sorrow and pain to himself and to 
others could not weigh an atom." 

Let no man think that this blasphemous gush which passes 
indeed beyond the bounds of historical sanity is at all unusual 
to socialist propaganda, for it is common talk with those over 
whom Christian faith still holds a lingering influence. Within 
a movement which reeks with sacrilege this is the mildness of 
the turtle dove. Yet its very lack of hostile words in attacking 
Christian truth makes it a most formidable enemy within circles 
of decadent Protestantism. All unawares its wicked pyschology 
steals in upon the starved emotions, taking captive both men 
and women whose repudiation of a man-made-christianity is 
creditable to their common-sense. If only St. Thomas were 
their instructor in right -reason ; if only they could see how 
simple it is to reconcile a good God and a bad world, socialist 
leaders would go elsewhere for converts. With a clear un- 
derstanding of the fact that fundamental principles limit ra- 
tional phenomena within proscribed limits, it would then be 
possible for this class of socialists to find out the reason why 
"Dr. Herron could not be hampered by the restraints of tra- 
dition and custom." It was not merely the formalities of 
thought and deed which Dr. Herron attacked, he assailed 
the fundamental elements which hold society together as a 
coherent body. Such an one is a law-breaker — he does not 
extend the liberties of the people by throwing off the "re- 
straints of tradition and custom," but he enslaves such of the 
people as follow him, just as he has enslaved himself, by setting 
up lawlessness for a new order — for a superior regime — to that 
which God ordained. Of course we have the power to set up 
a little petty kingdom of chaos for all who choose to be our 
subjects therein, but we have not the right to do so, for God's 
will is our work here on earth. Mr. Herron locked the door 



304 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

opening out to freedom against himself, and we hear he has 
thrown the key away, for the ten years that are passed since 
"the message" was delivered in full has shown no sign of his 
knocking at the door, having suffered penance. So it is that 
"the message" which socialists say makes "Dr. Herron the 
greatest prophet of modern times," is that same old message 
which has ever found dancers to its tunes. But alas for the 
dancers! they are heavily taxed by their fiddler, and their 
toll grows heavier by the day. We hope there shall be a re- 
turning faith in those eternal principles which alone hold the 
heart of humanity to sweet reasonableness and to honorable 
judgments. 

Consider the vulgarity of the running comparison of this 
sick sweet phrasemonger with Jesus Christ! Is it not revolting 
to good sense? And note that after becoming conscious " of the 
truths he taught " Jesus would have become the most despicable 
man who ever lived if he had not allowed women to support 
him at the task of giving His message. Which message is as- 
sumed by these evolutionists to be, because of the earlier period , 
not quite so great as this of the "modern prophet." All this 
crass ignorance from men who would scorn an authoritative 
interpretation of the Bible. Yet without apology they follow a 
self-set-up leader as being the only sufficient expositor of God's 
Word. Failing to turn aside religious institutions to their im- 
moral interpretations, these ex-minister socialists are the most 
pliant servants of his majesty — the prince of mental darkness. 
They are the most seductive ; in speech they turn the power of 
God's Word to work the downfall of faith, which in some 
men's breasts burns all too feebly to resist the glitter of the 
earthly paradise which may be had for a vote. 

The unspeakable assumption of the party press in compar- 
ing its political leader to Jesus of Nazareth, makes the pen pause. 
A party leader, too, who had just committed the act of putting 
away an honorable wife, so plainly in violation of one of the 
foremost decrees of the Master, who established marriage as 
a sacrament. Certainly such an outrage upon sober sense 
ought to meet with the intolerance of every right-minded man 
— of every man who stands for the integrity of the family within 
this nation. 



Socialist Leaders. 3°5 

It should be realized by those who say "socialism's all 
right for the future," that the movement not alone tolerates 
the home breaker, but sets him upon the highest pinnacle of 
socialist fame, and for what? For breaking the moral law 
which holds society within its duly progressive course, as the 
stars are by physical law held to their orbits. 

Just a touch of personal history may not be amiss at this 
point, for it relates to our quarrel with socialist leaders on the 
issue of the free family. 

At the time that this sentiment was sweeping through the 
socialist press the then editor of the Haverhill Social Demo- 
crat while addressing a public meeting in Boston referred to 
Dr. Herron as the second Jesus Christ, At the close of the 
lecture, upon the opening of the discussion which followed, 
Martha Moore Avery and others of our group declared war 
upon the current blasphemy within the socialist movement. 
It was a sharp turning point from a personal point of 
view, not very clearly seen at the time, but it progres- 
sively came to our minds as the point at which we were 
confronted with this issue: Was the socialism which had 
animated the minds and hearts of our little group of Boston 
workers one and the same with the "International Revolu- 
tionary Scientific Socialism" of the party? We set to work 
to test it. And it must be confessed that our zeal in the 
interest of the wage workers had long prevented our seeing 
that it was not. There was in fact a radical disagreement, 
which had for years been demonstrated, negatively, by the 
internal opposition to our work — especially to the work of 
Mrs. Avery. 

It came at last clearly to view that the socialism of our 
little band was not the socialism of those loyal adherents to 
international revolutionary scientific socialism, not the socialism 
of those persons who made the mould and of those party mem- 
bers who now hold the mould with which socialism is stamped. 
We give over freely and without a shadow of bitterness the 
name socialism. Thankful we were that the opposition to us 
as personal workers was sharp enough and that on the other 
hand our hostility to their philosophy and practice was strong 
enough to mark clearly the lines of separation between the 



306 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

two opposing camps. And these camps are none other than 
those of right-reason and of false-reason. - : 

-' The battle was opened up with passion. -Mrs. Avery 
asked was this glorification for selfishness and lust the 
cause to which she had given so many years of devoted labor? 
Was it true that the sex philosophy of Marx and En gels was 
after all the real issue of the socialist movement under the cloak 
of a political party organized for economic reasons only? If 
so she would have none of it. Did socialism really stand for 
the disruption of the home? Did socialism, as had always been 
asserted by so many, many members, Stand committed to 
atheism as its religious creed? If so she was as ready to give 
her life Work against it as she had heretofore been glad to give 
her life to it, thinking to promote the industrial wellbeing of 
the working class in particular and the advancement of society 
in general. 

By turning our attention to the literature circulated to 
make propaganda, these questions were answered. It may 
justly seem strange that constant workers for the movement 
kneW so little of it. But we think it will be clear to the 
candid mind when the facts are considered. None of us 
were Christians. But the ground of right-reason was becoming 
an intellectually tangible fact. Namely, the Author of Original 
Design within and yet exterior to His creation; myself as His 
rational creature gifted with the positive art principle which 
animals have not, second; third, all other phenomena, thus 
making up the three dimensions of human thought. Hence 
how to think rationally Was becoming an art, not to be forgotten; 
An art to practice in the understanding of socialism. 

Besides, being quite well satisfied that in time the movement 
would outgrow its crassness, the study of economics had for 
years taken the attention from off the content of the literature 
being circulated to make propaganda, and, too, it is easy to 
confess that we anticipated the advent of men of American 
breeding in sufficient numbers to swamp the foreign director- 
ship of the party in the United States. And in that way we 
thought to throw off the isms which clung to the party. But 
this was vain. As we have said the ex-ministers of American 
jbirth and culture are the most forceful propagandists of Marx- 



Socialist Leaders. 307 

iau: philosophy, as atheism by their speech wears a mask of 
religious sentiment over its murky face. 

Moreover, our Boston School of Political Economy, with 
Mrs. Avery at its head, as Director, had taken a large 
share of our time and intellectual effort. We had for years been 
delving into the principles of political economy. And al- 
though we had discarded Marxian economics to a great extent, 
we had not yet exactly seen the futility of the collective owner- 
ship of the means of production as a practical measure of re- 
lief to the overburdened working class. Thus a lingering con- 
fidence in the idea that socialism could be of benefit to the 
working class had, despite the constant and fierce friction be- 
tween us and other influential members of the national and 
local movement, kept us at work in the Socialist Party. 

Then followed the resolutions offered at the Massachusetts 
Socialist State Convention (1902). These resolutions called 
for the official sanction only of such speakers as kept their plat- 
form utterances clear from attacks upon religion and the church; 
clear from "free love" and "free family'* sentiments. The 
resolutions did not pass. But a forceful current of vilification 
did set in against the promoters and the supporters of it. This 
Was more testimony in evidence that the Socialist Party will 
not tolerate any interference with the propagation of its phil- 
osophy as laid down by its founders and by its leading, its 
influential, propagandists. 

In the discussion which followed the presentation of the 
resolutions, we were hissed and jerred for bringing up the matter. 
With a fine display of socialist tactics we were declared unable 
to bring proof that the current socialist literature was filled 
with the advocacy of " free love. " And with a skillful throwing 
of dust in the eyes that were just beginning to open to the truth, 
the leaders asserted that the socialists of Germany had de- 
clared religion to be a private matter, and that they would do 
likewise. That should settle the doubts of those delegates who 
feared an attack upon the home. 

It was then that this book was conceived. The public 
should be furnished with the avenue through which the facts 
in the case are easily accessible. The extent of the advocacy 
of these doctrines amazed us. The boldness with which the 



308 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

literature exhibited its philosophy gave full proof many hun- 
dred times over that the socialist dye was sun-proof; it will not 
wash out nor will it fade away. 

With the full proof came the conviction that socialism is 
the devil fish with its fangs tightening about the limbs of our 
government. With the conviction, nothing in conscience was 
left for those of us who up to our full opportunity, had placed 
cur lives at the disposal of this cause, who had served the cause 
as though it were that of the good God, but to turn right about 
face, cost what it would, and tell the public what it had taken 
us so long to learn, that socialism is a pest to the life of the 
world. 

But this is ancient history, and "Socialism: The Nation 
of Fatherless Children," (an eloquent title, the Boston Herald 
says), has run through its first edition of five thousand. Now, 
since the country is just awakening to the danger of which, 
more than a quarter of a century ago, the Vicar of Christ warned 
the faithful by those masterful encyclicals, " Christian Democ- 
racy" and the "Condition of Labor," there is prospect of a 
large circulation. 

Indeed, upon leaving the movement our group had no 
credit anywhere. Now, in God's own time, we are more than 
sufficiently rewarded by the confidence of those who know. 

Mr. Herron, was evidently, too frequently reminded of 
his past to enjoy a tandem family in his own country, as he 
has lived abroad in recent years. However, he has not been 
forgotten by his comrades at home. The Rand School is a 
constant reminder of his second-handed bounty; and now and 
again his case is reviewed to make out the immoral moral, 
or to show cowardly desertion as the part of valor. We quote 
from the Berger organ — Social Democratic Herald (9-28-1907) : 

"The editor of one of the evening papers has dragged the bones of 
the Herron scandal into the light again, and, with the usual relish of the 
hypocritical capitalist morality, takes great pains to show what an awful 
thing it was. The capitalist morality likes to strain at gnats and swallow 
camels. Although we do not defend it, we will say that compared with 
the average of marital rottenness that exists in our present-day capitalist 
society, the Herron case was really light colored. Love had ceased in 
the Herron household, at least on one side, which being the case, the doctor 
felt that the moral thing to do was to end the martial relations, making 



Socialist Leaders. 309 

provision for the economic safety of the wife and children. A divorce was 
secured, and Herron was then united to the woman of whom he had be- 
come enamored. Following the capitalistic habit he might have continued 
to immorally cohabit without love in his home, and had illicit relations 
outside, which is no crime under capitalism, so long as it is kept covered 
up. But he chose a different course." 

This, as may be seen, is extremely cautious, though the 
explanation is not far to seek. Socialists were just about to 
take up the reins of city government in Milwaukee, so at all 
hazards the astutest politician of them all did not startle 
those Polish Catholic voters who were being led to believe that 
they should vote for just the opposite of what they really wanted. 

Eugene V. Debs is neither cautious nor a politician. In 
The Worker (1 0-2-1 904), Mr. Debs, with an eloquence worthy 
of a good cause, declares that Prof. Herron is 

" . . . dowered with the intellectual powers of a giant and the 
moral heroism of a martyr. 

"The pure and lofty thought and the rare moral courage so beautifully 
blended in his character have made it possible for George D. Herron to 
live up to his ideals, to be true to his stainless self and set an example that 
the ignorant and brutal present may effect to despise, but that the 
enlightened and human future will gladly follow; and he will live in 
honored memory when his detractors are forgotten.'! 

An article in The Outlook (3-20-1909), by Col. Theodore 
Roosevelt brought socialist leaders up with so round a turn 
that the enforced pause gave them time to consider in fear and 
trembling. 

We quote from our ex-President's editorial: 

"Moreover the ultra-socialists of our country have shown by their 
attitude towards one of their leaders, Mr. Herron, that so far as law and 
public sentiment will permit, they are now ready to realize their ideals 
set forth by their authorities.'! 

Although Robert Rives La Monte is over bold even for 
a socialist leader, this is what he said, or rather how La Monte 
refused to meet Col. Roosevelt's resolute charge: 

"I am unwilling to dignify this by any answer save the bare state- 
ment of the fact that Mr. Herron was legally divorced from his first wife 
and married to his second wife by a ceremony that is recognized as legal 
and binding by the laws of the State in which it occurred — New York." 
{International Socialist Review, May, iqoq.) 



3 to Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

The Colonel's attack was a crucial point to pass, even 
though our doughty ex-President was himself in Africa. So- 
cialist leaders knew very well it would be a fatal blow to the 
movement to set before the newspaper public in its nakedness 
their free-love doctrine, which had been provoked. Unlike 
Rives La Monte, Mr. Morris Hillquit could not refuse to speak, 
neither could he remain silent ; was he not, together with the 
Herrons, a trustee of the Rand School fund? As something 
must be said, it should be much and nothing, so Mr. Hillquit 
declared that George D. Herron is "a man of absolute purity 
of character." By the standard of " sex fondness," of course. 

Not so with Gene; dear brave Debs has all the courage of 
his motley convictions. He can paint the lily and adorn the 
rose, and as easily perfume a stench and make palatable the 
carrion crow. Gene comes straight out in the "Appeal to 
Treason ' ' with his whole heart in his voice : 

.: ' ■- "■ • ■■ 'Jl 

'•MORAL UPRIGHTNESS OF SOCIALISTS.': 

"Surely it must be regarded as a rare tribute to the moral uprightness 
of the three million American socialists that only one can be found among 
them all to serve Mr. Roosevelt's dire necessity of a horrible example. 
But even this lone individual must be denied him. It is true that a 
slanderous capitalist press has seemingly succeeded in. fitting him for that 
indecent role, but those who know him know that Christ himself was not 
. more cruelly maligned by the pharisees of his day, and that a purer soul 
never walked this earth. 

"What are the facts? Listen, Mr. Roosevelt! The man whose 
misfortune you seize upon as an excuse to stab socialism in the back, and 
whom you crucify in public with the malignity of a dragon, was born in 
poverty and married as a mere boy. In his maturer life, realizing to his 
unspeakable sorrow that he did not love the woman he wed he was lawfully 
separated from her, by mutual consent, and lawfully married the woman 
he did love. In this he simply did what thousands of your republican 
friends have done and for which every decent man honors them, seeing 
that prostitution is never so vile and shocking to every moral sensibility 
: as when practiced within the marriage relation, 

"You have never criticized any of. your repubUcan friends for- ex- 
ercising, this lawful right and moral duty, and you would never have 
dreamed of dragging our comrade into the limelight had he also been, a 
republican instead of a socialist — and you know it! . 

"But I am not yet through with you, Mr. Roosevelt. The gentleman 
prepared by your foul and slanderous press to serve as your horrible 
example because he dared to speak the truth never in all his life tasted 



Socialist Leaders. 311 

Kquor or tobacco, never uttered a profane word, never polluted his lips 
with a lie, never played a game of chance, never spoke an unkind word 
to his family and never crossed the threshold of a bawdy house.. Can you 
and your intimate associates truthfully say the same ? 

"And yet this is the man you dare to lay wanton hands upon to con- 
vict the socialist movement of immorality."- (The Appeal to Reason, 
5-1-1909.) 

Perhaps no better example of palliating mortal sins by- 
harping on the non-committal of acts, only one of which is 
necessarily vicious, could be found. The ethical wickedness is 
not so easily seen to the depth of its malice by those persons to 
whom some petty virtue overshadows the weightier matters 
of the law. To play a game of chance, or to smoke tobacco, is 
no vice at all under right relations. As for never uttering an 
unkind word, what but goodness with no edge to it, is this 
when set over against the deliberate and persistent cruelty of 
a visit to the Holy -land in company with the women who are 
paying the bills of a husband with his wife and children at home, 
living, perhaps, upon some of that same ' 'tainted money ? ' ' This is 
a case of handing out scorpions in place of bread by the wholesale. 

We should be glad to leave Socialist Leaders at the date of 
the wedding, but that might be construed to mean that the 
more recent examples of putting their philosophy into prac- 
tice are not so typical, so flagrant as those we have given. 
This would be an error. As the movement grows stronger the 
defense of their doctrine is bolder, especially when with its 
bit in the teeth, passion makes its own defense. 

It was not the irony of fate which compelled, but evidently 
a free choice, when in The Call (Nov. 23-1908), a socialist leader 
wrote on the subject: "Does Socialism Break Up the Home?" 
Being strictly "scientific" in theory the writer finds: 



"The first condition of a happy home is a secure and steady income. 
. . . Socialism will free humanity from its economic chains. Humanity 
cannot be full spiritually as long as it is not full economically, as long as 
the making of a living consumes all energy and strength. 

"The second condition of happy family life is a union based on love 
and respect. . As long as the dread of poverty exists, marriage 

will not be based upon love.". 

Taking the writer at her word, as poverty did not exist 
in her home, the first condition of a happy family life was 



3i2 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

present. So there was not even the socialist excuse for the 
wanton conduct of this member of the National Woman's 
Committee on Socialist Propaganda. 

This writer is not an obscure person in Boston. She may 
sign M. D. after her name; is a frequent delegate to socialist 
conventions, a contributor to their newspapers and maga- 
zines. At her home the most noted guests of the party were 
entertained; in short, Dr. Antoinette F. Konikow is a woman 
of international fame in the socialist movement. 

When Gorky was the doctor's guest, she complained that 
she had not the time to tell every private questioner just why 
Gorky's relation with Andrieva was moral. So, through the 
public press she would simply announce that she was abso- 
lutely sure that it was moral. 

Faneuil Hall, Tremont Temple and other large halls were 
denied the committee of arrangements for the Gorky meeting, 
whereupon the following statement was issued: 

"We acknowledge our defeat in our attempt to procure a hall in 
Boston large enough to hold Gorky's admirers. But in reality it is a glo- 
rious victory. . . . The silent acquiescence of the press has apparently 
sanctioned these methods, but while Gorky's greatness has been in no 
wise diminished, nor the cause he represents retarded, cultured Boston has 
been covered with a blot by its ignominous action. . . . While there is 
no doubt but that there are thousands and thousands of Bostonians eager 
to welcome Gorky and express admiration for him, he does not care for 
any ovations. His whole life is wrapped up in the desire to aid Russia to 
free herself, and as for vindications, the narrow-minded and zealous who 
would be guardians of the public morals, have by their actions, erected a 
pedestal of glory for Maxim Gorky. 

"We, the hoodlums, only hope, for the sake of Boston's fair name that 
cultured Bostonians look, with us, upon this defeat as a defeat for all 
who helped and continue to help this city to be the Athens of America. 

"DR. M. J. KONIKOW, 

"DR. ANTOINETTE F. KONLKOW, 

"MICHAEL POLTANOVITZA, 

"BERNARD MARCUS, 

"REV. JOHN EILLS, 

"FRANKLIN H. WENTWORTH.'l (Boston Herald 5-4-1906). 

A little later than the Gorky episode, Mrs. Konikow, the 
wife of a successful physician, the mother of children, left Bos- 
ton for New York with her " soul-mate/' a young Russian com- 



Socialist Leaders. 313 

rade who had shared the hospitality of the home which the 
husband said had before been happy. And what was the de- 
fense for leaving a home of twenty five years, her husband and 
children? Aye, truly, she gave in the concrete the full force 
of the socialist doctrine, namely the right of a woman to be- 
stow herself in obedience to her own fondness for one of the 
opposite sex. " I love him, I cannot give him up." 

However, we shall call upon the public press to tell the 
story as it came out later, when divorce proceedings were in- 
stituted. We quote : 

"'I LOVE HIM!', WIFE'S CONFESSION LEADS KONIKOW 

TO COURT. 

"Mrs. Antoinette Konikow, wife of Boston doctor, sued for divorce because she 
would not give up soul-mate's love. 

"Dr. Moses J. Konikow, the well-known socialist leader, who is 
suing his wife, Dr. Antoinette F. Konikow, like himself high in the councils 
of the socialist cult, and known in both America and Europe for a divorce, 
gave his testimony before Judge Fessenden in the divorce session of the 
Superior Court to-day. 

"It was extremely interesting, showing plainly the liberal views held 
by Mrs. Konikow on the subject of the marriage relation and explains in 
part her anger at the society people of Boston, who objected to Max 
Gorky's relations with Madame Andreieva, the actress, who came to 
America with him and who is now Mrs. Gorky. At that time, the Konikows 
threw their doors open for Gorky and his companion when they were turned 
out of several Boston hotels after having a similar experience in New York. 

"story of affinity. 

"The husband testified to-day that his wife's friendship with one 
N. Gursenberg, a young Russian student of Appleton street, was objec- 
tionable. 

"The Konikows were married in the early 70's in Geneva. They came 
to Boston in 1903. They have two daughters, handsome young women 
now. In December, 1907, his wife left him. 

" 'The trouble began in 1906,' he said. 'Before that we were very 
happy. Then we met young Gursenberg, who called frequently. I 
noticed after a while that my wife was paying more and more attention 
to him. 

" 'Antoinette,' I said to her, 'you ought not to encourage this young 
man. It is not right.' She laughed at first and said it was nothing, 
that I must not be jealous. He was only an interesting young student. 
He was much younger than she. By and by she began to stay out nights 



314 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

and I knew something was wrong. I demanded an explanation and she 
confessed that my suspicions were correct. She- told me : 

" 'I love him and cannot giye him up. ' 

" ' Then we talked it over many , many times, and I reasoned with her,. 
put it was no use. Finally she agreed to "break off with him on account 
of the children. For three weeks everything went as in the old days. 
Then she came to me and said it Was impossible. She could not live 
without her friend.' ~ • . .; . 

" 'For the children's sake I will live with you, but — but—' she told 
him. 

" 'But what?' he demanded. 

* 'You must not object to my love for him.' Dr. Konikbw said that 
he told his wife this was impossible. 

" 4 Very well, I shall go away: to New York,' she said. Then she left 
himin December, 1907, the day after Christmas. 

'"He will meet me in New York,' she told the plaintiff as they parted 
in a friendly way. 

"LOCKED FROM ROOM. 

"In march, 1908, at his request, Mrs. Konikbw came to Boston to 
help her husband fix up some real estate transfer papers, and he had 
occasion one evening to visit her on Appleton street, where she told him 
she would stop while in town. The landlord of the place, John Deale, 
refused to admit him to his-wife's room. 

" 'I must and will see her,' Dr. Konikow said, and Deale took him 
finally to her room. There were voices within and she refused to open 
the door. 

"Deale and his wife corroborated this and added that the young man 
in the room with Mrs. Konikbw was the amnity named as correspondent. 

"Judge Fessenden said counsel need not read the several letters 
offered by the plaintiff, that the court would receive them and give due 
weight in considering the case. This closed the trial. The decision will 
be handed down in several days. There was no contesting libel in the case. 

"held audiences spellbound, 

"Mrs. Konikow has an interesting history. She is a brilliant writer 
and an orator of great power, and has held great audiences by the spell of 
her eloquence. In her student days she was a leader of the. most revo- 
lutionary of all the groups which made Geneva their 6anctuary of refuge. 
She was born in Russia, but spent her childhood in Germany, returning 
to Russia to attend college. She gained the degree of A. B. in the Uni- 
versity of Zurich, Switzerland, a She finished her medical studies after 
coming to America in Tufts College. She is a distinguished linguist, 
speaking seven languages. One of her hobbies during her years of 
activity in Boston was her effort to have the school literature improved and 
cleansed of what she said was 'the soul- destroying spirit of capitalism,' 
Which she said permeated it." (Boston American, Jan. 1 , 1909.) 



Socialist Leaders. al 315 

And now we shall put the socialist hypocrisy regarding 
the family on the rack, for the question naturally arises : Was 
the standing of the mistress in New York less good than that 
of the wife in Boston f It was not: Rather was her standing 
promoted, for during the period that husband and children 
were deserted the doctor was. elected to the National Woman's 
Committee of the Socialist Propaganda (National Convention 
of the Socialist - Ptfrty-, 5-1 7-1 90S}. 

And thus the "free wife" became a much more conspicu- 
ous national figure than before. Here is aj concrete, case, typi- 
cal of socialist history, and we leave it, with the question, for 
truthful men to answer; Was it poverty— -economic determin- 
ism — or the world, the flesh and the devil that bfoke^ up thi^ 
home? M r - : "" : '■- "' : - ; ' z - : - '-" : - h ~' r -- ~"'~ :l - :l: 9ax ^® m ■-- :; ' : -^" " 

We have, in our chapter on "Socialist Tactics," made 
reference to the propagation, by example, at the national head- 
quarters of the philosophy Which corresponds with ColleCtive- 
ism— with the abolition of private property, which although it 
is by no means the basis of the monogamic family, it is necessary 
to the support of the family. We should not conclude Socialist 
Leaders without a brief survey of the case, because it shows 
on a national scale that the organization is sufficiently " class- 
conscious" to know its own, and that the management will 
brook no interference from those comrades not sufficiently in- 
doctrinated with the virus of sex freedom to, at least, hold 
their peace with regard to their leaders' conduct I No reform 
within shair be instituted while the Revolution is making progress 
towards the general introduction of what is now particular 
cases of "individual emancipation," Without question the 
editor of the Christian Socia list -shall learn the temper of 
the movement to be something quite other than what he be- 
lieved it to be when he called so loudly on it for help to clean the 
augean stables. 

The Rev. Edward Ellis Carr pleaded for a fair trial for 
those officials charged with making the National Headquarters 
"a den Of iniquity." 

Already the official reports show a Punch and Judy trial. 
The guilty are officially free from taint or stain; while the 
reformers are officially dead, being branded as " wilful liars 



316 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

or lunatics," "bribers," "grafters" and "blackmailers." Mother 
Jones does not so easily escape as the men ; nor does her vener- 
able age protect her; she is "a woman of ill -repute." 

With courage high, but little real knowledge of the so- 
cialist movement, the Christian Socialist entered the arena 
to do battle for the right : 

"Charges of the most serious character have been made before the 
National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party against the National 
Secretary. If these charges are true, he should be relieved of all official 
responsibility in the party. If they are false, he should be cleared of them 
in a fair and unequi vocable manner. Nothing but a full, fair trial can 
properly settle this matter. 

"The attempt to belittle those who make these charges is exceedingly 
unwise. Thos. J. Morgan is one of the most experienced, intelligent 
and highly honored of Chicago socialists, who, in spite of bitter opposition 
manifested against him recently, was chosen by referendum as one of the 
four comrades to represent Chicago socialism in the National Socialist 
Congress. 

"'Mother Jones,' the War Eagle of the American Labor Struggle, 
who makes serious charges against the National Secretary, cannot be 
condemned with impunity nor successfully ignored. The deliberate effort 
to prevent the comrades at large from learning that she is back of 
'Morgan's charges' looks rather dark. 

"To be sure a socialist branch is not running a holiness class meeting, 
and no political party can require perfect characters of its rank and file; 
but certainly the vast majority of the Comrades will desire sober, chaste 
men and women for their more important officials. Those who preach 
or practice 'free-love' should be kept far in the rear." (i -26-1 911.) 

As the malice thickened and came to a head, in an agony 
of spirit Mr. Carr cried out: "// the cancer be there cut it out 
now." 

We know full well how to sympathize with this soreness 
of heart, for the movement that was once loved as the one 
bright star of hope on the horizon of distressed humanity fell, 
tumbling down to earth in the dung of the barnyard. Mr. Carr 
may grieve, but there is no prospect that the free-love cancer 
shall be cut out, though here and there teeny, weeny voices 
are raised in defense of common honesty and decency. The 
cancer is in the socialist theory. It should not take an over 
brilliant mind to find it out upon reading the issues of The 
Christian Socialist dealing with the matter. 



Socialist Leaders. 317 

The charges brought against the national office were at 
first dismissed as "too frivolous" to act upon by Messrs. Hill- 
quit, Carey, Berger, Goebel, Hunter, Spargo and Mrs. Lewis, 
the seven members of the National Executive Committee. But 
editor Carr's loud, straight talk compelled a re-opening of the 
matter. So the next step taken was the election of a "white- 
wash" committee of five, more or less the retainers of the Na- 
tional office. Its findings are characteristic of the socialist 
mind, the fashion for which was set long ago by the "Commun- 
ist Manifesto." It expropriates the would-be expropriators, 
for after the National Secretary and the two women officials 
— one a national lecturer and organizer — are painted lily- 
white, and those preferring the charges, are made to be black- 
mailers and grafters, the tables are turned and editor Carr 
who is assumed to be a "liar" and a "lunatic" is himself made 
the subject of investigation for the defamation of the party's 
reputation. We quote from The Christian Socialist (4-6-1 9 11) : 

"The officials have spoken— WILL THE COMRADES OF THE 
SOCIALIST PARTY STAND FOR THEIR DECREE? And will The 
New York Call, The Chicago Daily Socialist, The Appeal to Reason, Tlie 
International Socialist Review, . . . remain silent in the face of such a 
cowardly and unspeakable outrage? IF SO, LET THEM NO MORE 
PRETEND TO STAND FOR JUSTICE, TO HONOR THE TRUEST 
WORKERS FOR LABOR'S EMANCIPATION, TO CONDEMN THE 
CRIMINALITY OF CAPITALISM.". 

Alas that bold, brave words should fail upon deaf ears. 
What! a crusade against the unspeakable conditions, as re- 
ported at national headquarters? Mum is the word from them 
all. These publications know their doctrine altogether t©o well 
to take a hand in the free love row at the headquarters. Stuff ! 
give support to Capitalist morality and so repudiate the barn- 
yard ethics of the new society ? It would never do — this Carr and 
the others*must be sent packing off to the A very-Goldstein gang. 

What would become of those socialist classics — " The Origin 
of the Family," Bebel's "Woman" and many other doctrinal 
works which teach free-love "scientifically." Of course it is 
all right for those with capitalist scruples, with a Reverend 
before their names, to take part in socialist propaganda; they 
open up new fields for the scientific cultivator, but they must 



318 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

not get too troublesome, especially if they have an organ in 
which they can 6peak, by attempting to set up a doctrine of 
their own, for socialism shall be socialism to the end of the 
chapter — till the devil defeated takes a new tack. 

It is entirely safe to say that there was never unearthed so 
demoralizing a condition of affairs at any political headquarters 
as that set out in the three issues of The Christian Socialist 
of January 26th, April 6th and April 20th. The editor apolo- 
gizes for printing the matter, by saying: 

"We realize that this issue is a terrible paper. Nothing hut the 
sternest and most profound sense Of duty could have impelled us to issue 
such a number, and we pray that never again will it be needful to do like- 
wise.'- (April 2©, X9rr.) : : " 

Like as the snake charms the bird, so does socialism charm 
good men; hence it is that we see one now and again doing 
yeoman service for a movement, the basic principles and prac- 
tices of which his soul abhors, utterly mistaking its identity 
fora system of sound economics. 

We present for consideration a letter published in The 
Christian Socialist, dated 

„„ „ *, "Lakewood, Q., Feb. 21, 1911. 

"B. E. Carr, • y 

"Chicago, 111. 

"Dear Comrade : Thinking maybe what I am about to write may be 

of some assistance to you in your effort to clean up the stench that 

emanates from the National Office of the party is my reason for writing 

you at this time. I have on many occasions in the past entertained 

comrades at my home, and among others Lena Morrow Lewis during 

April, 1907, to be exact, the week of April 7th. In the course of a few 

days of her stay she let us know that she believed in and was an advocate 

of free-love, as the term is commonly used. She further told us she had 

an intimate friend in San Francisco who ran an assignation house, and 

that she lived with her while in that place ; and justified not only her 

friend in the business but the frequenters of the place. Our opinion of 

her, gained from her own admissions during the week spent at our home, 

is that she is a moral degenerate. My opposition to Barries as National 

Secretary dates from this time owing to the fact of his intimacy with 

this woman, something of which she seemed very proud, and which was 

evidenced by i;he frequency of the letters received from Barries while 

here, extracts from which were read to us. 

-'• : -~ ' ~ - ^ " Yours fraternally, . [ 

W. B. Slusser/'. 



Socialist Leaders. 319 



■ 



In the same issue (4-20-19 11), the following letter also 



appeared ; 



:•: 



}b S qu :: . i - ■ \ .: ■ 

"Los Angeles, Gal, Feb. 8, 191 1. 
"Dear Comrade Cam 

[ft,G£i'H/ * **.*.:; j I 

"Mrs. Lena Morrow Lewis has lectured on the sex question so much 
in California that it became generally understood that she was 'scienti- 
fically unconventional.* So, when Mrs. Lewis came to Santa Maria to 
speak, I decided upon getting a more definite Statement from her as to her 
position on the question. Before her meeting, vat which. I was to act ss 
chairman, I had a conversation with her on one side, in private. As I 
remember the conversation well, haying put down the points carefully the 
next day, it was about as follows: 

" 'What then, is your position on this sex question— this question on 
the relation of the sexes now — under capitalist conditions?' I spoke 
dispassionately; ■■ •-• l ■■'■'- — - Bflnfiito dxjsna 1 '■■::■:■ smd. 

" 'In the last analysis it amounts to this/ answered Mrsv Lewis. 
'If the man 'makes good' to the woman, if he leaves her satisfied with the 
relation that, has existed between them, then there has been no harm 
done. It matters" not whether that relation was a simple hand-shake, a 
kiss or the final sex-act.' 

'"But suppose a poor girl is much in need of hard casTi-^-is she not a 
prostitute if she submits to the last-named for pay?' t £ 

"There was a quiver of uncertainty in Mrs. Lewis' face, but she 
answered" confidently : The woman must be satisfied with the relation^ 
that is the sex problem in a single statement. ' c : . - 

. . '"Capitalism has established a lot of ridiculous restrictions upon the 
personal conduct of individuals,.' she went on. 'Socialists are in no .way 
bound-to consider these capitalistic institutions, Any one who pries into 
the private affairs of socialists is impertinent to the last degree.' 

'"So you are of the opinion that we are in no way bound to live as 
celibates, if we happened to be unmarried?' was my next question. 

'" As such restrictions.are all a part of the capitalist system,and as they 
are contemptible interference with our. private conduct, I insist that we 
are in no way bound by them.' 

- "'But do you not feel that the socialists who hold representative 
positions in the party or those who draw salaries from the. party are in a 
way bound to consider these capitalistic institutions ?' I asked. 

'"Any one who pries into the private life of socialists is to the last 
degree impertinent,' Mrs. Lewis answered. , 

'"What of one of the prominent comrades who confesses to the most 
radical views upon such questions, yet he lives aiife absolutely, conven- 
tional, so that if investigated by the most 'impertinent' his private record 
could in no way harm the cause— is not that a far safer, saner and more 
loyal position to take ?' Tasked again. 



320 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

'"That's entirely a matter of personal choice/ Mrs. Lewis said. 
'In the last analysis, it is nobody's business this matter of private opinion 
and conduct. Capitalism must go — and with it all that capitalism has 
developed/ she insisted. 

"Then there was a sentence or two more of conversation between Mrs. 
Lewis and myself, but we were interrupted as it was time to open he- 
meeting. 

"Very sincerely and fraternally yours for socialism, 

"(Signed) Bertha Wilkins Starkweather." 

Is it to be expected that the party which flaunted the per- 
fect union with his soul-mate who crept into his arms in the 
home of his wife and his children, of a Herron; the party that 
defends the morals of a Gorky, an Earle and a Walling, will 
repudiate free-love conduct at its national headquarters? 

Well, if so, a closer study of its principles, its history and 
its personnel will show this poisonous influence to be what 
it is — the breath of the Beast itself. 

No, the socialist movement is not subject to reformation 
from within. The Investigating Committee found Mr. Carr's 
compaign for fair play to be one of slander. For his efforts in 
behalf of making a filthy, pitchy, sticky pool to be the gushing of 
sweet waters which shall wash away the ills of economic life 
Mr. Carr is dubbed a traitor. Indeed, it fared hard with Mr. 
Carr ! By his own comrades his personal motives were " proved ' ' 
to be the exact opposite of honest intentions. We quote (The 
Socialist Party Official Bulletin, June, 191 1) : 

"Failing to substantiate his charges before that committee he neverthe- 
less continued his campaign of slander. It soon became evident that 
the. motive of Mr. Carr was not the welfare of the party, but its 
disruption.". . . . 

"In support hereof we charge Rev. E. E. Carr with publishing under 
dates of October 1 and October 15, 1910, and January 26, April 6, April 
13 and April 20, 1911, in a. privately owned paper, called the Christian 
Socialist, scandalous matter (which, upon investigation, has been shown 
to be unsustained), calculated to defame the character of members and 
officers of the Socialist Party and to disrupt the party organization. 

" We further charge that the publication of this matter in the Chris- 
tian Socialist has been used by enemies of the Socialist Party to discourage 
prospective members from joining the Socialist Party and to disrupt 
the party organization.". 



Socialist Leaders. 321 

We have not the slightest doubt as to Mr. Carr's good 
intentions. It is his knowledge which is at fault, not his integ- 
rity. Socialism is to Mr. Carr what his imagination pictures it. 
But socialism is in fact what the enemies of God mean it to be — 
the would-be destroyer of Christ. Mr. Carr's socialism is the 
unripe fruit of the Reformation. Its ripe fruit is, of course, 
atheism ; while its half -ripe fruit is the confusion as to what the 
Christian religion is. If ever Mr. Carr learns what socialism 
really is he shall perforce have learned what Christianity is. 
This would lead him straight home to Rome as the centre of 
Christian authority. 

Before the Committee of Investigation Mr. Carr had 
expected a square deal, but he was given infidel craft. Mr. Carr 
had expressed the conviction that the party would prove itself 
guilty of fostering free love if it convicted him of willfully in- 
juring the party; that justice demanded honest dealing with 
the charges which "Mother Jones" and others had brought 
against the National Headquarters; that to shift the charge of 
free love against the men and women officials to a case against 
the editor of The Christian Socialist was a piece of hypocrisy, 
good proof that the party was guilty. We quote again from 
the Socialist Party Official Bulletin, June, 1911: 

"Mr. Carr argued that if he be expelled it was proof positive that the 
party therefore stands for free love and immorality. The Socialist Party 
repudiates this insinuation and refers to socialist literature as well as party 
platforms and the membership as a whole for its position on this subject." 

Of course, the party has proven that it stands for free 
love. Not at all times openly. No, that were not the means 
of converting the general public. Socialists know that it is the 
process of undermining the belief in Christian morality which 
brings recruits into their camp. Their appeal to "socialist 
literature" as a proof of their position is a shrewd piece of 
duplicity. As the reader has seen we have in our chapter on 
Free Love by quotations from many classics of party literature, 
shown that the movement advocates free love. The spider 
would entice the fly into its parlor. 

Not that a seemingly open denial of free love is too gross 
tactics for these makers of a new morality. We quote again 
from the Bulletin: 



322 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children 

"The Socialist Party never has and never will endorse free love and 
immorality, as Mr. Carr charged against it and which he may continue to 
charge.'' 

No, it is not likely that the party will take that action in 
so many words. That would surely enlighten even Mr. Carr, who 
although he has had his proof \ he still clings to the notion that he 
imbibed his socialism when he was converted to Christ. 

If Mr. Carr should learn to reason as soundly as he can 
express his feelings eloquently the study of socialist literature 
would show him that socialism is not the newest form of Chris- 
tianity, but rather its latest organized foe. This is perhaps not 
too much to hope, for to the sincere mind mental distress proves 
a wonderful awakener. And socialist reprobation has fallen 
upon Mr. Carr's devoted head. Instead of securing fair play 
for his comrades who insisted upon " cleaning up" their national 
headquarters The Christain Socialist has had its guns spiked. 
It was ordered removed from the list of officially recommended 
socialist papers. 

But although disgrace has fallen upon the editor, the con- 
verts which The Christian Socialist made are not returned to 
their non-socialist state of mind. Now, having but a "little 
knowledge ' ' they are in greater danger. And pity 'tis 'tis true 
that the very row is a means of making converts. For greater 
socialist agitation follows in its wake, but no more real informa- 
tion as to its inner meaning is given. 

However, the headquarters' incident is now closed for the 

fifth time ; this climax was reached by a popular judgment against 

Mr. Carr, who has no doubt unwittingly given himself lavishly 

to the cause of Christian devastation. We quote as before from 

The Socialist Party Official Bulletin (June, 191 1) : 

"To the Members and Lccals of the Socialist Party: 

'-'Comrades — The Socialist party of Cook County, 111., represented 
by its Delegate Committee at a meeting held June 25, 191 1, expelled from 
its membership the Rev. Edward Ellis Carr, by a vote of 51 for the expul- 
sion and 21 against." 

It is, of course, possible for Mr. Carr to be reinstated in 
socialist favor. We hope he will not. For speaking broadly 
such return shall be conditioned upon that gentleman becoming 



Socialist Leaders. 323 

. 

a "scientific socialist." Socialist leaders jealously guard their 
centre. They see to it, when a case comes up, that those in 
power "know" that private property gave to civilization the 
monogamic family. Hence its materialistic, its non-moral 
origin. Hence also, the understanding of the full consequences 
of the repudiation of the family as the economic and political 
unit of civil society must mean nothing less than the so-called 
freedom of the sexes. In other words license not order in 
sex relation is the socialist demand. This is the password 
admitting one to the inner circle of comradship with socialist 
leaders. 



Abolition of the State. 

"Evil and error cannot have a right to be set 
forth or propagated. . . . The State 
is false to the laws prescribed by nature, 
when, every bridle being removed, full power 
is left to evil and error to upset minds and 
corrupt hearts." Leo XIII. 

THAT the State is within the order of nature a permanent 
design; and that the just authority of its government 
aristocratic, democratic, paternal or oligarchal, comes from God, 
has been argued out of existence is the firm conviction of so- 
cialist doctrinaires. So by their camp-followers the sacred 
obligation of men to defend their country is laughed to scorn. 
To put their contention into their own idiom, the state is a 
capitalist club to beat the workmen into submission to their 
industrial masters. 

"It is a fight to the finish, and one of the two contending 
sides must ultimately win out." 

As it goes without saying that socialists believe them- 
selves in the fight to win out, so it is their prophecy, general 
and specific, that in all its various forms the state recognizing 
private property in capital as the rightful possession of in- 
dividuals, and also that the family is the politico-economic 
unit of organized society, shall die out. 

We desire to make the socialist contention on this point 
clear by excerpts from their leading writers, national and in- 
ternational. In the German movement no man stands higher 
than August Bebel, we present two quotations from "Woman," 
in which the author says that "class antagonisms" bring the 
state into existence : 

"With the abolition of private property and class antagonism, the 
state, too, will gradually pass out of existence." ("Woman," New York 
1910, p. 435). 

"The state gradually ceases to exist with the passing away of class 
rule, as surely as religion ceases to exist when belief in superior beings 
atrd occult powers is no longer met with . " (P . .3 6 5 . ) 



Abolition of the State. 325 

It is too bad that the naivett of this is not seen by its author, 
for the state which he would have not to be is surely secure 
if it shall cease only after the belief in a superior being is 
extinct. 

It is said by Robert Rives La Monte that probably Ga- 
briel Deville has done more than anyone else to popularize 
the ideas of Marx in France. We quote from Deville 's "The 
State and Socialism" (New York, 1900): 

"My thesis is that a social organization is possible without a state, 
and that the state appears and subsists only in societies divided into 
classes. ... 

"The state is the public power of coercion, created and maintained 
in human societies by their division into classes, and which, having force 
at its disposal, makes laws and levies taxes. . . . 

"For socialists — the existence of the state in a society is bound up 
with the existence of classes in that society. Hence, this conclusion: 
before classes came into being there was no state; when classes shall 
cease to exist there will be no state.' I 

Tears are not yet in order, for this is certainly as wise as 
Dogberry; so our eyes may be dry over the predicted loss of 
the state in general and over the particular extinction of our 
own country. Yet, with the conclusion which Deville affixes 
to his absurd premise all reasonable men may agree, for it 
is morally certain that when classes shall cease to exist, there 
will be no state, nor no people either, of which to form a so- 
cial organization. So in our ratiocinations we may conclude 
that the other side of the "present order" is formless and void. 

Of course, in the socialist argument, the extinction of the 
state is conditioned upon the destruction of the unit of 
the state, namely, the monogamic family. For socialist eco- 
nomists are well aware that the Christian family is grounded 
upon the natural family. Hence a flank movement against 
religion is set up by an industrial attack upon the Christian 
home, which is builded upon the purest form of the human 
family, as no form more simple is possible than one husband, 
one wife and their children; and moreover the monogamic 
family is quite sufficient to maintain and to carry forward the 
race. The home is to be broken up all in the name of Progress. 
But Progress under the iron spur of the socialist heel is being 



326 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

driven in the wrong direction, as women are to be segregated in 
the public industries. 

On the authority of "The Origin of the Family, Private 
Property and the State," it appears that the desired emanci- 
pation of women is primarily dependent upon the "re-intro- 
duction" of the whole female sex into the socialized industries. 
We quote : 

"With the transformation of the means of production into collective 
property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of 
society," (p. 91). 



What then? Simply that the support of the natural 
family is taken away. On the one hand lucrative property 
(private capital) is no longer the possession of the Christian 
family, with the man the responsible head; and on the other, 
the just wage — the sufficient support for himself, his wife and 
their children — is denied to the men who sell their labor, for 
not their families are the economic units of the state, but merely 
the individual men and women, while all the children " legiti- 
mate or illegitimate," (sic) are cared for equally well by the 
"social organization." And as though it were a new thing 
in the calendar of the race, all shall be commanded to work. 
Not, of course, upon God's authority — for the socialist ma- 
jority will give all the orders. We quote from "Woman:" 

■. "As soon as society has become the owner of all means of production, 
the duty to work of all able-bodied persons, regardless of sex, becomes 
a fundamental law of socialized society." (P. 370.) 

Possibly with the opportunities of individual initiative cut 
off and domestic felicities dried up, all the " race-conscious " 
units— the once blind cells of the evolving organism — may 
be glad to work, to drive off the desperate desire to erect an 
industrial design of their own or to drown the desolation of 
homelessness. 

Since in the "socialized society" neither capital and wages 
nor the state will be found extant, it is but fair that one of 
authority shall tell how these things, found necessary since the 
life of man was writ, have been done away with. We quote: 

"In order to understand what we mean by the suppression of capital, 
one must know that capital is for us a character which the means of pro- 



Abolition of the State. 327 

ductkm have taken on under given, definite social conditions, and which 
they may lose without effecting their existence in the slightest. It is 
j ust the same in the case of the wage-system and wages. The latter term 
cannot, according to us, be applied to any system of remuneration what- 
soever, but only to a mode of remuneration presupposing surplus-labor. 
It is just the same finally in the case of the word state, which means, in 
our opinion, a system of social organization which implies necessarily 
the division of society into classes. 

". . . The future social organization, when antagonistic classes 
no longer exist, when constraint no longer has to be exercised over some for 
the benefit of others, will not be a state any more than the means of pro- 
duction will be capital after they shall have lost the power of exploiting 
the labor of others, or than the future remuneration will be what we call 
wages when it shall no longer presuppose surplus-labor. These two latter 
changes will be the result of the suppression of the character of capital 
which is to-day stamped upon the principal means of production.' ' ("The 
State and Socialism," Deville.) 

However one may be inclined to quarrel with the doing 
away with the state, capital and wages, surely there is no kick- 
ing against the socialist opinion that within the state there are 
necessarily economic classes. One may indeed be glad that 
with all their success in the creation of a classless society there 
are still to be men and women. Moreover it is inferentially 
acknowledged that the difference shall be operative upon eco- 
nomic ground. Too bad! By this time, theoretically at least, 
socialist minds should have been able to evolve the single cell 
human. Assuredly it could be made a higher type of a pre- 
historic condition, just as prehistoric collectiveism is to be 
returned to its natural condition, but at a very high elevation, 
by the swing that the spiral of evolution has now in hand. 
Yet, perhaps after all some women may be glad to retain their 
differences to men even under the great disabilities of economic 
equality. 

However, Bebel being a past master on the subject of 
Woman, shall tell just what her life is to be : 

"In the new society woman will be entirely independent, both socially 
and economically. She will not be subjected to even a trace of domina- 
tion and exploitation, but will be free and man's equal, and mistress of 
her lot. Her education will be the same as man's, with the exception of 
those deviations that are necessitated by the differences of sex and sexual 
functions. Living under moral conditions of life, she may fully develop 
and employ her physical and mental faculties. She chooses an occupa- 



328 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

tion suited to her wishes, inclinations and abilities, and works under 
the same conditions as man. Engaged as a practical working woman in 
some field of industrial activity, she may, during a second part of the day, 
be educator, teacher or nurse ; during the third she may practice a science 
or art, and during a fourth she may perform some administrative function. 
She studies, works, enjoys pleasures and recreation with other women 
or with men, as she may choose or as occasions may present themselves. 
"In the choice of love she is as free and unhampered as man. She 
wooes or is wooed, and enters into a union prompted by no other con- 
siderations but her own feelings. This union is a private agreement, 
without the interference of a functionary, ■ "■ (p. 4^6). 

Meantime if the occupations of teacher and nurse are ex- 
tant, children must be born. So although infants are no more 
the " property " of their parents, because they belong to so- 
cialized society, the female with child shall be big with eco- 
nomic hindrance, and with sorrow at the loss of a male pro- 
tector and a shelter. Though this may be too sentimental, 
for Paul Lafargue ("International Socialist Review," Vol. 5, 
p. 558), says: 

". . . Civilized humanity, oppressed by the mechanical mode 
of production, turns its face towards a society, based on common 
property, in which woman, delivered from the economic, legal and moral 
chains which bind her, may develop freely her physical and intellectual 
faculties, as in the time of the communism of the savages." 

It should be observed that each assault upon society re- 
lates in one way or another to the economic unit of the state. 
This is necessarily so as their central aim — the socialization of 
private capital — destroys the material support of the family. 
And just as the fire that burns up the house is, while it burns, 
attractive, so is the lust that would burn up the home made 
to appear something desirable in itself. We quote from "So- 
cialism; Its Growth and Outcome," (Chicago, 1909): 

"As to the particulars of life under the socialistic order, we may, 
to begin with, say concerning marriage and the family that it would be 
effected by the great change, firstly in economics, and secondly in ethics. 
The present marriage system is based on the general supposition of econo- 
mic dependence of the woman on the man, and the consequent necessity 
for his making provisions for her, which she can legally enforce. Thia 
basis would disappear with the advent of social economic freedom, 



Abolition op the State. 329 

and no binding contract would be necessary between the parties as regards 
livelihood; while property in children would cease to exist. 
(P. 225.) 

William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax are not less sure 
that a change would be wrought in the foundation of the state 
than is Robert Rives La Monte that the religious significance 
of the family would disappear. He says: 

"From the point of view of this socialist materialism, the monoga- 
mous family, the present economic unit of society, ceases to be a divine 
institution, and becomes the historical product of certain definite economic 
conditions. It is the form of the family peculiar to a society based on 
private property in the means of production, and the production of com- 
modities for sale. It is not crystallized and permanent, but, like all other 
institutions, fluid and subject to change.'- ("Socialism: Positive and 
Negative," p. 98, Chicago 1907.) 

With the economic unit of the state gone to the dogs, and 
the state gone after the dogs, " The Industrial Republic," (p. 233) 
according to Upton Sinclair, saves all young girls from a life 
of shame by supplying them with the equality of opportunity 
for getting their living, and for gaining intelligence that is crimi- 
nal. We quote: 

"What will be the effect of socialism upon prostitution? Any young 
girl can go to the public factories and stores, to the cooperative boarding 
houses and hotels, the schools and nursery play grounds, and secure em- 
ployment for the asking, and support herself by a couple of hours' work 
a day in decent and attractive surroundings. She will, moreover, be able 
to marry the man who loves her, because the problem of a living will no 
longer enter into the question of marriage. She will be able to restrict her 
family to as many as she and her husband care to support, because she will 
be as intelligent and sensible as the women of our present upper classes." 

Surely a statesman, looking to the good of his country 
and to the Commandments of the Lord God for his standards, 
would write degeneracy and foolishness where Sinclair has 
written "intelligent and sensible." For if, indeed, the impli- 
cation be true of the women of our upper classes, then that 
God will preserve the lower classes from this wickedness and 
folly should be our constant prayer, that our beloved country 
shall not sink into the mire of sex depravity. 

Considering the fact that the "benefits" to women upon 
the destruction of the economic unit (the family) of the civil- 



33° Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

ized countries, is the one phase of the discussion that is never ab- 
sent, we deem it important to set forth what socialist women 
themselves anticipate regarding that freedom which their own 
efforts united to those of their gentlemen comrades are work- 
ing out for the women of the future. These benefits evi- 
dently would limit the freedom of motherhood, as the makers 
of the public opinion which is supposed to be leading up to 
the Revolution have decided that God's command to increase 
and multiply is not to be tolerated. Hence upon the future 
cuckoo-parents there is to be put some restraint, for nursing 
bottles en masse run up into a big bill, especially where the work- 
ing hours are only three or four per day. As H. G. Wells put 
it, the coming regime will require: ". . . A new sexual 
order of which the over-parentage of the state is the salient 
factor." 

In The Masses (July, 19 11), something is told about the 
"wonderful work" of Mrs. Lena Morrow Lewis. From the 
Woman Suffrage movement where she had worked ten years, 
Mrs. Lewis came to the Socialist Party in 1902. The most 
distinctive honors in the gift of the party are conferred upon 
Mrs. Lewis, and the greatest responsibilities are placed upon 
her. As one of the seven members of the National Executive 
Commiteee, Mrs. Lewis shapes the party propaganda of this 
country, and as National Lecturer, she carries the message of 
the class struggle from the lumber camps in the North to the 
alkaline roads of Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Oceans. Besides, Mrs. Lewis is one of the five members of the 
National Woman's Committee on Socialist Propaganda. Hence 
it is certain that no more creditable witness could be called upon 
to testify as to the disappearance of the family as the economic 
unit with the advent of the new society. We quote from the 
Woman's Day Edition of The Call (2-2 7-1 9 10) : 

"The man who calls himself a socialist, and then says that under 
socialism men will provide for women is wide of the mark . . . we 
have no reason to anticipate a time when men will do all the work and 
support women. Men who hold such an idea must be taught differently." 

So thoroughly has the individual usurped the place of the 
family as the economic unit, in the mind of this national official, 



Abolition op the State. 331 

that evidently the home, in which good mothers have plenty 
to do r is not within this survey, not even sympathetically. In- 
deed, this socialist executive deluded into the belief that her 
" wonderful work " is meritorious work explains to " The Masses " 
that home is quite out of her reckoning. We quote : 

"The price I personally have paid has been to relinquish any and all 
ideas of a home. Not that it matters. I am used to it now. But I have 
rather a record, don't you think? Seventeen years touring as a lecturer, 
and in all that time I have never slept for fourteen consecutive nights in 
the same place, I have rested for ten or twelve days and nights. But 
that is the longest. I have not as yet touched the two weeks' mark. 

"Out in California I have a very dear woman friend who lived there 
with her family. In her home, when I visit her, I feel as nearly as though 
I were in my own home, as I do anywhere. But to be truthful I have 
quite forgotten the sensation of having personal belongings about me 
other than my clothing." 

Poor woman ! If only before it be too late, she would repent 
as Wolsey: Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal I 
serv'd this vile cause, He would not in mine age have left me 
naked to remorse, homeless, with a blight upon my native land. 

Mrs. Lewis has improved the socialist speech, but not its 
doctrine.. Romantic love is certainly a great refinement upon 
" sex fondness," but lawlessness in happy or in repugnant phrase, 
is no secure foundation for the state. Romantic love is not 
the rock of chastity, it is a heap of vice, with marriage stripped 
of its sacrament. We quote from The Masses: 

"In the perfect marriage, man and woman will contribute equally 
to the home, spiritually, mentally and economically. The equal home is 
the dream of the future, as is the perfect romantic love.'' 

Mrs. May Wood Simons, well known throughout the country 
as a socialist lecturer and writer, especially of blasphemous 
lessons for socialist Sunday-schools, which are alleged to be 
"scientific," is no less certain that the family as the economic 
unit shall be undone, upon the abolition of "capitalist society." 

"It is to socialism alone that the home life must look for its rescue 
and purification. 

"Since she would perform services for society either in bearing or 
rearing citizens or working in the improved and beautiful shop or factory, 



332 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

or in producing works of art, she would no longer be an economic de- 
pendent upon man. 

"Woman's economic equality, however, is not imaginable without 
political freedom. Socialism will mean the complete political equality 
of woman,' ' (Woman and the Social Problem.) 

Mrs. Simons is quite right, it is not imaginable that the 
individual shall take the place of the family as the unit of or- 
ganized society, save the family be razed to its very foundation. 
As a moral body the family must be first deprived of private 
property which is its material support. The woman must be 
deprived of the protection and support of her husband by her 
"economic equality." The political responsibilty of the man 
as the representative of his family must be denied by the " po- 
litical equality " of the wife ; all this that the collapse of the state 
may be complete. Following the example of Cain, having 
killed the family, socialism must go out from the face of the 
Lord and build a fugitive society over against Eden. 

Writing under the caption " The Old Motherhood and the 
New," (The Call, 1-15-1911), Anita C. Block, editor of the 
Woman's Sphere, is keen for the disruption of the state in the 
interest of motherhood : 

"To-day, marrying for a home is just as true of the working woman as 
it is of the upper class woman. The average working girl considers the 
wage earning period of her life as purely transitory— as a necessary evil 
to be terminated as speedily as possible by marriage. So, in order to 
escape the torture of wage slavery she flies into a torture that is worse — 
into the arms of an unloved husband, and, as the sex slave of the master 
of her bread, becomes the unwilling mother of unwanted children. . . . 

"When all the things that people need and want in the world are 
produced under the control of ALL the people, for the benefit of ALL the 
people, instead of by a few for the profit of a few; and when every one, 
woman and man, receives the JUST return for the share of labor she or he 
has contributed to the general productivity, no human being will need to 
be 'supported' by any other human being. All human beings, women as 
well as men, will support themselves adequately by their SOCIALLY 
USEFUL work. 

"Thus woman, by doing such part of the socially necessary work for 
which she is physically fitted, will be able adequately to support herself. 
In other words, she will be economically independent." 

Barring the flagrant instances of mercenary marriage, Mrs. 
Block's assumption that women in general fly to the arms of 



Abolition of the State. 333 

an unloved husband , is entirely gratuitious. Upon consider* 
ing the numbers of unmarried young men and women, it seems 
truer to the mark to say that mercenary motives, motives of 
personal ease, keep women out of the married state. 

At all events, here is unwritten testimony that the heart 
of the country is sound. If not for founding a family, if not 
for making a home within the nation, what should be the ob- 
ject of honorable marriage? As material support is a con- 
comitant of wifehood, it is not only justifiable but absolutely 
essential to the right adjustment of the burdens of civil society 
in carrying forward the race, which is a divine command. This 
self-sacrifice, ungrudgingly given, is returned in benefits an 
hundred fold, in the felicities of home life, and in one's love for 
and pride in one's country. We make no doubt that every 
manly man and every womanly woman shall exclaim, God for- 
bid that the time shall come when the home is not the product 
of the wife's industry; and when the house is not the product of 
the husband's industry. The woman working within the domes- 
tic sphere, the man working within the sphere of political eco- 
nomy—out upon the field of commerce. When this is not the 
rule then shall the nation perish. 

But the nation shall perish if socialist women may have 
their way. In writing of the "Mother's Future" (Interna- 
tional Socialist Review, June, 19 10), Georgia Kotsch views 
that future outrageous in which independent women are pic- 
tured as being dependent for support upon one man. We 
quote: 

"The vocation of wife and mother would render an independent 
woman dependent upon one man and this is innocently supposed to be 
an inducement to her to marry. Could anyone but a man have written 
that." 

Truly it is not freedom from poverty, not the freedom of 
plenty, that is wanted, but the power to smash the moral con- 
stitution of civil society. That future in which women should 
find themselves as honest wives are now, is altogether too tame 
for the excited imagination of women who expatiate upon an 
ideal society, based upon the plunder of private property and 
the impossible equality between men and women. 



334 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

In the event of the overthrow of our Republic, Luella R. 
Krehbiel {The Call, 1-30-1910), tells how socialism will "liber- 
ate women : ' ' 

Every woman must go out and work the time of her 
shift in whatever line of production she chooses or is best fitted for, and 
when her work is done she will receive her certificate of labor which will 
prove to the world that she has done her part of its work and has a right 
to all that its civilization has to offer." 

Without doubt " the world " would be interested in so amaz- 
ing a spectacle as the universal subversion of the natural con- 
stitution of human society. But it is more than doubtful if 
at that time civilization were extant to offer anything; and 
it is utterly impossible to believe that other than very unnatural, 
ungodly, women would be delighted with the life. 

However, the worst is not yet, for more active than the 
brains of even very brilliant women with normal imagination 
is the ordinary state of the socialist woman's mind. For it 
should be understood that only exceptional women enter the 
propaganda. The women belonging to the "comrade's" 
families who make up the voting strength of the party are 
not enlisted in the work. On the contrary many of them bit- 
terly deplore the activity of their men folk in the movement. 
Some very pitiful tales on this score we could tell. 3 

Not alone is the moral constitution of things to be turned 
up side down and wrong side out; the very nature of the race 
is made to suit the theory of surplus-value and a self-created 
world. The socialist majority, presupposing the death of the 
state, will take their census by regulating the right to parent- 
hood. We quote from the editor of "Woman's Sphere" 
( The Call, 4-3 0-1 9 1 1 ) : 

"When, however, we consider the relation of reproduction to society, 
we find that this right of the individual in the matter of parenthood is 
absolute only so far as the REJECTION of parenthood is concerned, that 
the ASSUMPTION of parenthood is a right which society alone should be 
permitted to grant and which should not be considered as the right of the 
individual at all. In other words, every man and woman has the right 
to refuse to become a parent, because, through such a decision, no SOCIAL 
act is involved. The bringing of more human beings into society, how- 
ever, is distinctly a social act, and must, therefore, be regulated and 
controlled bv societv, like everv other social act," 



Abolition of the State. 335 

Shades of Solomon ! the wisdom of Mrs. Block would have 
put his glory to the blush. Yet even this is not enough I for 
the women in the socialist sanctum will take more space to 
show God just how to create a race fit for their "free society." 
No, verily, the Almighty shall have no part in it, since society's 
right is absolute. We quote : 

"Reproduction, therefore, considered in the light of the socialist ideal, 
must be a process consciously making for the evolution of the individual 
possessing the largest amount of social usefulness. Its social signifiance 
cannot be overestimated, and, therefore, society's control over it must be 
unquestioned and absolute." 

Is not the impudence of it sublime? In pride does it 
not give points to Lucifer himself? 

Lawless as he is, George Bernard Shaw's words are pale 
and his ideas tame when side by side with the female social- 
ists' scheme. Though their point of attack is one and the 
same, namely, the family as the unit of the state : 

"With the welding of society into one class, the economic inde- 
pendence of women and the supplanting of the head of the household 
by the individual as the economic unit of the state, will materially alter 
the status of children and the utility of the institution of the family." 

The welding of society into one class would without ques- 
tion form a new society, the like of which was never known upon 
land nor sea. As for the utilitarian consequences, to the sober 
mind they should seem impossible to conceive, for the simple 
reason that the race has thus far furnished no phenomenon 
for its induction, while its deduction is out of question, being 
contrary to all known principles. 

Yet the creation of a classless society is precisely the self- 
appointed mission of the socialist movement. And we sub- 
mit first as foremost authority Marx and Engels, quoting from 
"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:" 

"The state ... is simply a product of society at a certain stage 
of evolution. It is the confession that this society has become hopelessly 
divided against itself, has entangled itself in irreconcilable contradictions 
which it is powerless to banish. In order that these contradictions, these 
classes with conflicting economic interests, may not annihilate themselves 
and society in a useless struggle, a power becomes necessary that stands 
apparently above society and has the function of keeping down the con- 



336 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

flicts and maintaining 'order.' And this power, the outgrowth of society, 
but assuming supremacy over it and becoming more and more divorced 
from it, is the state" (p. 206.) 

"The state is the result of the desire to keep down class conflicts. 
But having arisen amid these conflicts, it is as a rule the state of the most 
powerful economic class that by force of its economic supremacy becomes 
also the ruling political class and thus acquires new means of subduing 
and exploiting the oppressed masses. The antique state was, therefore, 
the state of the slave owners for the purpose of holding the slaves in check. 
The feudal state was the organ of the nobility for the oppression of the 
serfs and dependent farmers. The modern representative state is the 
tool of the capitalist exploiters of wage labor" (pp. 208-9.) 



As well as Ferrer, Marx knew that a revolution in ideas is 
the preliminary to the destruction of the state, Christian or 
whatnot. A state in control of other people is what socialists 
don't want. What they do want is the power with which to 
rule. Obviously the " proletarians" are in the majority, using 
bullets or ballots in the socialist cause they must win if only 
their commanders are equal to the occasion in the last "class 
struggle." 

Socialism is alleged to be the cause of the working-class, 
yet the movement was conceived, organized and has been 
officered ever since by other than workmen. What then is 
the core of those ideas which centralizes practical power in the 
hands of socialist leaders? Simply the revolt against the 
authority of the church, the state and the family. The man 
who shifts his allegiance from God, home or country to the 
cause which merely seeks the administration of things is duped. 
For the cat is wholly out of the bag that the usurpation of 
rights and the dictatorship over personal acts, secular and 
sacred, is intended. 

The revolution in ideas proceeds, in " The Origin of the 
Family, Private Property and the State," (pp. 211-212): 

"The state did not exist from all eternity. There have been societies 
without it, that had no idea of any state or public power. At a certain 
stage of economic development, which was of necessity accompanied by 
a division of society into classes, the state became the inevitable result of 
thi9 division. We are now rapidly approaching a stage of evolution in 
production, in which the existence of classes has not only ceased to be a 
necessity, but becomes a positive fetter on production. Hence these 
classes «3uet fell as inevitably as they once arose. The state must ir~ 



Abolition of the State. 337 

revocably fall with them. The society that is to reorganize production on 
the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will transfer the 
machinery of state where it will then belong : into the Museum of Anti- 
quitiei by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.' \ 

To the proletarian, acquainted neither with the facts of 
history nor with, to them, the more important fact that so- 
cialist minds create history from their desire to maintain their 
theory, this complete revolution in ideas gives them the notion 
that socialists alone have the key to future events. Their 
cool assumption of what is not so, comes like a breeze of hope 
that the hard conditions of labor may be thrown off for leisure 
and plenty. For the get-rich-quick fever in the veins of irre- 
ligious men is not confined to the upper classes. So their hard 
life becomes harder and socialism advances in favor — and 
spreads. 

Like Deville, all others follow Marx and Engels in assum- 
ing that the monogamic family will become extinct. It must 
be destroyed. For is it not the unit of the state, and have not 
the followers of socialism with thundering tones cried out that 
the state is on its last legs? We quote from Bebel's " Woman " 
(P. 365): 

"The transformation of all means of production into common 
property forms the new basis of society. The conditions of life and work 
for both sexes in industry, agriculture, traffic, education, marriage, 
science, art and social intercourse become radically different. Human 
life is given a new purpose. Gradually the organization of the state also 
loses ground ; the state disappears; it, so to say, abolishes itself." 

: That the state is doomed, is also the conviction of George 
Plechanoff, ("Anarchism and Socialism," Chicago, 1908): 

"Modern scientific socialism . . . while explaining the historic 
origin of the state, shows in this very origin, the conditions of the future 
disappearance of the state.'! 

There is no socialist of national or international standing 
who holds other than the regulation opinion of the class-con- 
scious, but not every man puts his doctrine so succinctly as 
Robert Rives La Monte. Having quoted the master-minds, 
he concludes : 



338 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

"It is thus seen that, according to the teaching of historical material- 
ism, the state is destined, when it becomes the state of the working-class, 
to remove its own foundation — economic inequality— and thus to com, 
mit suicide.". ("Socialism: Positive and Negative," p. 113.) 

This work of La Monte 's is especially recommended by 
the Socialist Party. The Call considers it "one of the best 
little books you can read to get an understanding of the 
fundamental principles of socialism." 

In a long series of Outline Lessons, The Wage Slave (3-19- 
1909), puts the intention of the party into very plain words' 

"Political action is valuable for a two-fold reason. First, it serves 
as a means of agitation ; a means and an oppoitunity for getting Revolu- 
tionary Truth before the people. Second, it is important for destructive 
purposes to get control of the powers of political government to neutralize 
them as far as possible and to see to it that they obstruct as little as pos- 
sible the formation of the Co-operative Commonwealth which must find its 
framework in a totally different source than a conversion of present day 
political institutions.'! 

Again in lesson XVIII (4-2-1909), those "half-baked com- 
rades" who imagine that the municipal ownership of social 
services is socialism, are warned that it is nothing of the sort. 
Nor is it any more the Federal ownership of railroads, or the 
control over interstate commerce. Rather socialism proposes 
to-day just what its founders in '48 proposed, the complete 
razing of the "present order" and a new society built upon 
its grave. Hence students are taught that : 

"The function of the political movement is purely destructive. The 
proper field of effort for socialist political action is not to re-inforce the 
present political state by extending its functions but to capture and 
destroy it." 

Herr Bebel amplifies this statement somewhat in " Woman " 

(P- 435): 

"Together with the state will vanish its representatives: ministers, 
parliaments, standing armies, police, courts, lawyers and district attorneys, 
prison officials, collectors of taxes and duty, in short, the entire political 
apparatus." 

It is, however, quite the privilege of Frederick Engels, 
who possessed the scientific fore-knowledge equal to the little 



Abolition op the State. 339 

task, to tell the whole wide world just how the state shall be 
snuffed out, and how the classless society springs, full-armed, 
into the ownership of other men's property, not to mention 
other of its absolute rights: 

."The Proletariat seizes the machinery of the state and 
converts the means of production first into state property. 
But by so doing, it extinguishes itself as proletariat ; by so doing it ex- 
tinguishes all class distinctions and class contrasts ; and along with them 
the State as much. The society that existed until then, and that moved 
in class contrasts, needed the state, i. e., an organization of whatever 
class happened at the time to be the exploiting one, for the purpose of 
preserving the external conditions under which it carried on production ; 
in other words, for the purpose Of forcibly keeping the exploited class 
down in that condition of subjection — slavery, bondage or vassalage, or 
wage-labor, which the corresponding mode of production predicated. 
The State was the official representative of the whole society ; it was the 
constitution of the latter into a visible body ; but it was so only in so far 
as it was the State of that class which itself, at its time, represented the 
whole society; in antiquity, the State of slave-holding citizens; in the 
middle ages, the State of the feudal nobility : in our own days, the State 
of the capitalist class. By at last becoming actually the representative 
of the whole social body, it renders itself superfluous. Soon as no longer 
there is any social class to be kept down; soon as, together with class rule 
and the individual struggle for life, founded in the previous anarchy of 
production, the conflicts and excesses that issued therefrom have been 
removed, there is nothing more to be repressed, and rendering necessary 
a special power of repression-^-the State. The first act, wherein the State 
appears as the real representative of the whole body social — the seizure 
of the means of production in the name of society — is also its last inde- 
pendent act as State. The interference of the State in social relations 
becomes superfluous in one domain after another, and falls of itself into 
desuetude. The place of a government over persons is taken by the 
administration of things and the conduct of the processes of production. 
The State is not 'abolished' — it dies out. This is all there is in the phrase 
about a 'Free State,' both with regard to the just uses to which it is put 
by agitato rs^ and its scientific-insufficiency ; this also is all there is in the 
demand made by so-called anarchists that the State be abolished out of 
hand." ("Socialism, Utopian and Scientific") 

Upon knowing so much as just how the state per se should 
die out, it surely was not over bold of Engels to predict the 
death of the English nation. 

The Revolution was to have brought it about during the 
middle of the last century — and, don't you know? the English 



34© Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

are still in the flesh, hale and hearty. In writing the life of 
his comrade, Karl Kautsky disposes of Engels' prophetic vision 
in a jiffy. We quote from "Frederick Engels: His Life, His 
Work and His Writings" (p. 7) : 

"Events which no one could have foreseen were at fault that the 
prophecy was not fulfilled ; above all the June fight of 1848 in Paris and 
the discovery of the gold fields of California in the same year, which drew 
across the sea the discontented elements of England and weakened for a 
time the strength of the labor movement.'! 

The cock-sure science of life has been interfered with by 
Blind-Force on many other occasions, for reasons given and 
for reasons absent. Yet the unforseen events which no one 
could have reckoned with in no wise dampens the ardor of 
these materialist devotees. We give a few examples in point. 
In 1847 Marx and Engels declared that Germany was on the eve 
of a bourgeois revolution, and that a second proletarian revo- 
lution would quickly follow. Sixty-four years have passed and 
both revolutions are overdue. 

Gravely, in international convention assembled, these 
makers of a new order of human society to take the place of 
that which God ordained, set forth in the "Communist Mani- 
festo" (1847) that: 

"The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because 
that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be 
carried out and the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the pre- 
lude to an immediately following proletarian revolution.'!. 

Engels was especially fond of prophecying. In an intro- 
duction to Marx's brochure on the trial of the Cologne Com- 
munists (1885), he declared that the next European uprising 

"was almost due, since the period of European revolutions during 
the present century was between 15 and 18 years — 181 5, 1830, 
1848-52, 1870." 

Just what business an earthquake had to interfere with 
the science of life as it was about to pass into dramatic action, 
is not wholly accounted for. A la Wilshire, it is certain that 
the earthquake in California utterly routed the time set for 



Abolition of the State. 341 

the tragic death of these United States. So one year more 
was added to the date of 1906 — and still Columbia floats her 
stars and stripes. 

"The earthquake in California by the destruction of some hundreds 
of millions of dollars of property will help enormously toward continuing 
'prosperity' in this country. What the present competitive system needs 
above all things else is a 'market.' The earthquake will force California 
to be the largest and best buyer in the world for the next two years. The 
rebuilding of her fallen cities will stimulate business not only throughout 
the United States but indeed throughout the world. California will 
not only have the hundreds of millions of insurance money to spend, but 
she will borrow millions in addition. There will be no shortage of money. 
I have been saying that unless we had a great war that a profound period 
of depression was sure to appear within two years in this country as the 
result of an inevitable over-production. I now retract my prophecy. 
I did not count on an earthquake. I now wish to extend the time; 
the California earthquake should put off the crisis at least one year 
longer." (Wilshire's Magazine, May 1906.) 

Socialists do not consult an astrologer in making prophecies. 
Oh, no, they rely entirely upon their own intensity of thought. 
We very well remember consulting gravely as to the date of 
the revolution at the occasion of celebrating the second anni- 
versary of the original Nationalist Club of Boston. It was 
decided, before his address at Tremont Temple, to "comb 
down," a little, Daniel De Leon's ardor, for it was feared that 
six years ahead was somewhat too early to place the date. That 
was in 1889. 

Upton Sinclair is a little more cautious, or rather a little 
less wild. In his "Industrial Republic" (1907), Mr. Sinclair, 
presumably, is gravely engaged in surveying the signs of the 
time. Happily we are given until 19 13 to feel the full force of 
his wisdom, for with swift prescience this brilliant propagan- 
dist sees that date as the socialist "swarming time." 

"So it is that I write in all seriousness that the revolution will take 
place in America within one year after the Presidential election of 191 2 ; 
in saying this, I claim to speak, not as a dreamer or a child, but as a 
ntist and a prophet." 

Prophecies are useful in creating the revolution mental, 
for working over the expectation of social justice here and of 
heaven hereafter into the anticipation of lotus-eating on earth. 



342 Socialism: ike Nation op Fatherless Children, 

Prophecies are more useful for "proving" the "Bible of 
the working-class" to be correct. . For how could a prediction 
of future events come to pass, if a "scientific" diagnosis of 
historic conditions were lacking. It could not, of course. If 
Marx's ponderous tome does not take the place of God's word, 
why then, all things are not in a constant change, for no jot 
or tittle -of -the- law changes. Neither are the everyday facts of 
up and down, of right and left in danger. Moreover, the posi- 
tive identity of each individual soul is safe. As, however, 
many Johns there may be in John's conceit of himself, or to 
John's friends, John the baby, the youth, the man, is one and 
the same John, although he may have had more than a dozen 
new skins. 

Prophecies are most useful, however, for stimulating propa- 
ganda. If socialism is to be here in our day, let it come now! 
This is the work J "The Iron Heel" takes in hand. Jack London 
shows that because some one had blundered, the Revolution 
slated for 1 9 12 did not come off. Consequently there followed 
three hundred years of terrific, bloody conflict before the so- 
cialists were able to date their love letters in the year i, B. 
H. of M. In his review of this novel (The Worker, 3-1 4-1 91 8), 
Jos. Wanhope points out the service Jack London has done the 
cause by showing how the defeat and the disaster on that oc- 
casion was planned by the oligarchy, the mistakes of the so- 
cialists could have been avoided. We quote: 

"Probably there are few socialists who believe that the social revolu- 
tion can be consummated through the ballot alone. In some countries we 
have little hesitation in declaring it impossible. Still the socialist agitator 
cannot be fairly charged with concealment of his views, for he lets it be 
plainly understood that the ballot can accomplish the desired change, 
if — and there is no need to conceal the proviso — the capitalists will abide 
by the rules of the game— the will of the majority, legally and peaceably 
expressed at the ballot box. 

"In calling our attention to these contingencies Jack London has 
performed a valuable service for the socialist movement as well as pro- 
ducing the most powerful and absorbing piece of socialist literature that- 
h-as appeared in many years. 

"We strongly advise every socialist to procure this striking volume 
and give it a careful perusal. As for non-socialists, the book itself will 
take care of them. It will force itself upon them — a portent that no 
thinking man or woman can avoid or fail to see." 



Abolition of the State. 343 

It should come as a warning, to those of our citizens who 
are not political atheists, to learn something of the intentions, 
the practical workings, of the Socialist Party. Its attacks are 
not successive. Not first on religion, second on the state, 
third on the family and then on private property; no, socialist 
propagandists are so numerous and so indefatigable that each 
grand division of our society and all classes are made the si- 
multaneous brunt of their battle 

The working class is for obvious reasons, besides the fact 
of superior numbers, their especial prey. To quote from Jack 
London: 

"The (socialist) leaders intend to direct the labor revolt to the capture 
of the political machinery of society. . . . With the control of the 
police, the army, the navy, and the courts, they will confiscate, with or 
without remuneration, all the possessions of the capitalist class which 
are used in the production and distribution of the luxuries and necessities 
of life." (The Independent, Oct. 1903.) 

Surely this is eminently practical! It is, too, tame when 
seen side by side with the Revolution shod with its "iron -san- 
dals," roaring louder as it approaches the end of the nineteenth 
century. It bespeaks itself with a finer frenzy rolling in Herr 
Bebel's prophecy. We quote: 

"The revolt of the new world against the old has broken out. The 
stage is crowded with actors, the struggle will be carried on with an amount 
of intellect such as the world has seen in no struggle before and will see 
in none after. For it will be the last social struggle. The 19th century 
willhardly end before the contest is decided.". ("Woman; in the Past, 
Present and Future.") 

Far be it from us to make light of the determination of 
socialists to organize a revolt against civil society. Nor would 
we despise the powers which are gathering to perform the act ; 
they are in truth terrific. Yet we may indulge the smile at 
the miscalculation of one having, we presume, an intellect which 
would have put Aristotle's reasoning to rout. There may 
have been an earthquake just before the time of the prophecy 
was up. 

Since Victor L. Berger is propagating socialism upon the 
floor of Congress, and since The Appeal to Reason (7-1-1911) 



344 Socialism: the Nation op Fatherless Children. 

with a circulation of more than half a million, counsels its 
readers to write for Congressman Berger's first speech, his 
opinion is important : : 

"It is the first time socialists have had an opportunity to send out 
ammunition at the expense of the government, and the most should be 
made of it.'- 

We present the instruction which the socialist Congressman 
gave to his followers in his own organ (Social Democratic Herald, 
Milwaukee, 7-31-1909) : 

"No one will claim that I am given to the reciting of 'revolutionary* 
phrases. On the contrary, I am known to be a 'constructive' socialist. 

"However, in view of the plutocratic law making of the present day, 
it is easy to predict that the safety and hope of this country will finally 
lie in one direction only — that of a violent and bloody revolution. 

"Therefore, I say, each of the 500,000 socialist voters and of the two 
million workingmen who instinctively incline our way, should, besides 
doing much reading and still more thinking, also have a good rifle and the 
necessary rounds of ammunition in his home and be prepared to back 
up his ballot with his bullets if necessary." 

Something more than a revolution in ideas is taking place, 
as, practically, our own country is being made to furnish the 
means, the platform and the press, by which its life is to be 
stamped out in blood. 

It is not that the real meaning of socialism has changed. 
Rather, what it means is being progressively impressed upon 
the minds of its friends and its foes — upon those who assault 
and those who defend their country. So long as its leaders 
had not much of any power it was safely neglected; but, we 
submit, the time is overdue for giving it serious attention. 
The editor of The International Socialist Review, Charles H. 
Kerr, makes it clear that the leopard has not changed its spots 
while it was getting its growth. 

"The word socialism is a growing word. Most dictionary definitions 
tell only what the word used to mean. The latest dictionary definitions 
tell what socialism looks like from the outside. But the word has come 
to stand for a very definite thing — that is to say, for a movement which 
started with the Communist Manifesto of 1848 and which now enrolls 
many millions of workers in all civilized lands. These workers know 



Abolition of the State. 345 

better than the dictionary-makers what socialism means. These words 
of Liebknecht, a German socialist, who until his death knew perhaps 
better than any other man the spirit of modern socialism, explain briefly 
and clearly. 

"WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT. 

"Pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recogni- 
tion of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Con- 
demnation of wealth and respect for poverty, such as we find in Christian- 
ity and other religions, is not socialism. The communism of early times, 
as it was before the existence of private property, and as it has at all times 
and among all people been the elusive dream of some enthusiasts, is not 
socialism. 

"In all these appearances is lacking the real foundation of capitalist 
society with its class antagonisms. Modern socialism is the child of 
capitalist society and its class antagonisms. Without these it could not 
be. Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact must be 
kept in mind." (The Revolt, San Francisco, 5-6-1911.) 

Precisely! Socialism is what it was at its inception in '48. 
To-day there is more of the same thing, namely, revolution- 
ary activity in every department of Christian civilization. The 
intention is plainly set forth in the words and deeds of its ad- 
vocates. The pages of its program are wide open. 

1 st. The proletariat gets control of the state. That is, 
the socialist parties are voted into political power by the work- 
ing class. 

2d. They take and hold all the means of production as 
the property of the collectivity. That is, the wholesale con- 
fiscation of private capital will take place; or, as Marx puts it, 
the expropriators are expropriated. 

3rd. The socialist majority, of the classless society, elect 
the leaders, a small minority, who become the representatives 
of the whole social body. That is how class lines are to be 
eliminated, and to stay broken down. 

4th. The interference of the state in social relations shall 
become superfluous in one domain after another. That is, 
marriage, penal and civil law, falls of itself into desuetude. 

5th. The state renders itself useless, at last, and dies 
the death. 

6th. Henceforth, if not forever, a government over per- 
sons is no more. There is merely an administration over 



346 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

things. Children, no longer belonging to their parents, are in- 
cluded in these "-things," for they shall then be a part of the 
sex industry. 

Given this state of things, there should be no quarrel with 
Engels' view that what socialism wants is wholly sufficient to 
cover the demand of the anarchists for a "Free State." We 
quote from another author: 

"Instead of government there will then be simply a business ad- 
ministration. . 

"There will be, instead of persons to be constrained, only things to 
be administered." ("The State and Socialism," by Gabriel Deville.) 

As anarchists are very much against the government, 
they are pleased, we presume, to know that political machinery 
shall come to an end. If not in the nineteenth century, which 
is indeed passed, some time,— Well, when one, only one, of the 
multitude of socialist prophecies come true. We have accord- 
ing to their erratic vision set down the end of many of the 
everyday necessities of government, which anarchists do not 
like. 

To be sure, those who have prided themselves that two 
things never fail, must forego the confidence in taxes. Death is 
still certain, but taxes? There will be none to collect. Has 
not Herr Bebel said so? Now, if any living man knows what 
socialism is it is he — the close associate of the men who made 
it, namely, Marx and Engels. Besides there are other things 
to go by the board. And it shall all be done so easily, if only 
those who do not believe in the annihilation of government 
will behave just like little lambs. 

Jean Jaures, the French leader of socialism, says, "When 
everybody is an office-holder, there will be no more office-holders. " 

This is easier than rolling off a log! Who would have 
thought it was so simple. 

When everybody owns the capital, there will be no more 
capital. 

When everybody is in power, nobody will be in power. 

When everybody is a pauper, there will be no more paupers. 

When every woman is a prostitute, there will be no more 
prostitutes. 



Abolition of the State. 347 

- When every child is fatherless, there will be no more fathers. 
When every man is without a country there will be no more 
states. All to be brought about by the proletariat performing 
the last act. The whole political apparatus takes its leave r ac- 
cording to Karl Marx, because : 

"The working class will substitute, in the course of its development, 
for the old order of civil society an association which will exclude classes 
and their antagonism, and there will no longer be political power, properly 
speaking, since political power is simply the official form of the antagonism 
in civil society." ("The Poverty of Philosophy," London 1900.) 

Given his false premise, Marx is logical. Surely with no 
classes there shall be no political power ; no political apparatus ; 
no. civil society; no race. So beginning upon nothing but in- 
tellectual degeneracy, and sentimental depravity everything will 
be changed into "free land," "free means of production," a 
"free family," a "free society," operated by the minority, 
elected by the socialist majority. To make assurance doubly 
sure that there shall be a dead level, flat, stale and cold, we 
quote from the "Communist Manifesto:" 

" When, in the course of development, class distinctions have dis- 
appeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a 
vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political 
character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized 
power of one class for oppressing another." 

Never departing from the "Manifesto's" lead, Bebel ampli- 
fies the meaning of Marx and Engels. We quote : 

"The hundreds of thousands of former representatives of the state 
will enter various professions, and by their intelligence and strength will 
help to increase the wealth and comfort of society. Neither political nor 
common crimes will be known in the future. Thieves will have dis- 
appeared, because private property will have disappeared, and in the new 
society every one will be able to satisfy his wants easily and conveniently 
by work. Nor will there be tramps and vagabonds, for they are the pro- 
duct of a society founded on private property, and, with the abolition of 
this institution, they will cease to exist. Murder? Why? No one 
can enrich himself at the expense of others, and even the murder for 
hatred or revenge is directly or indirectly connected with the social 
system. Perjury, false testimony, fraud, theft of inheritance, fraudulent 
failures? There will be no private property against which these crimes 
could be committed. Arson? Who should find pleasure or satisfaction 



34& Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

in committing arson when society has removed all cause for hatred? 
Counterfeiting? Money will be but a chimera, it would be 'loves labor 
lost!' Blasphemy? Nonsense! It will be left to good and almighty 
God himself to punish whoever has offended him, provided that the 
existence of God is still a matter of controversy.' ' ("Woman,' ' p. 436.) 

Words stand for things. Here the things that the words 
stand for are abnormal, and these unwholesome things are in 
a confusion born of blasphemy. It is true that the belief in 
God may be made a matter of controversy, but what power 
has controversy over the existence of God? Controversy over 
a peanut neither brings that useful thing into existence, nor 
puts it out of existence. 

Reason proves God's existence by the arguments which 
prove the necessity for the existence of the author of the original 
designs of the Cosmos : reason asserts the existence of God from 
the fact that the Christian Church stands all the tests brought 
against it historically, rationally and practically. Herr Bebel is 
now an old man, but his blasphemy may be arrested at the last 
moment, as that of the thief on the cross. 

Bax also sees things abnormal, both on this side of so- 
cialism and on the other. We quote from " The Curse of Law:" 

"That ultimately civil law must disappear with the last vestiges of 
modern civilization, no socialist will refuse to admit. But I still main- 
tain, as before, that one of the first measures of a definitely socialist 
administration should be the closing of all courts for the hearing of purely 
civil causes. Such a measure, which would mean the definite break on the 
juridical side with the old order, is of too revolutionary a nature to pro- 
ceed from any other than a revolutionary body, but given such a body, 
a modern 'Convention' or 'Paris Commune' it could not consistently be 
refused." ("Outlooks from the New Standpoint," pages 103-104.) 

This socialist philosopher is serious. Just in line with the 
founders of the movement, his process of making mankind good 
is to let all criminals loose. No doubt a convention held by com- 
rades who had already abolished the soul could be relied upon 
to close up the courts. What should civil law be doing without 
a moral code? It is simple enough that without a moral code, 
and a civil court, there could be no criminals. The class-con- 
scious are quite practiced in this state of enlightenment. For 
just so long ago as socialists in convention assembled, decided 



Abolition of the State. 349 

upon the confiscation of private property, and the establish- 
ment of a " free family," just so long ago was it that they threw 
the Ten Commandments after the lost soul. 

In his "Universal History from a Socialist Standpoint," 
seemingly without any compunction of soul or perturbation of. 
conscience, Ernest Belfort Bax, still the socialist philosopher 
par excellence, blots out civilization with a capital C. We 
quote : 

"Mankind having passed through the fire of the State-world, of 
Civilization, of history, must come out the stronger and the more perfect. 
Latterday society redeemed from Civilization will be a higher and a more 
enduring society than that early society which knew no Civilization. It. 
is towards this world, where Civilization shall have ceased to be, that the 
socialist of to-day casts his eyes.". ("Religion of Socialism.") 

Is it not just too bad for anything that the " Ode to Chaos " 
is just a little late in appearing? We presume the poets have 
been overworked upon the "Ode to the Prostitute," of which 
we have made a collection. Otherwise this to the limit in 
prose could be outclassed in poetry. 

Ere long it shall be exceedingly difficult to express the 
thoughts which language has conveyed for four thousand 
years from man to man. Because so many things, together 
with their names, shall have gone out of existence with civiliza- 
tion. So we hasten to make known why under the socialist 
regime civilization shall be a thing of the past. Because he 
has set it down so plainly we cheerfully give to Mr. J. Sketchley 
the privilege of restating the socialist argument against what 
is necessary for the maintenance of civilization: 

"In every age and in every country the Church and the State have 
been the great centres of despotism. The Church and the State, the 
throne and the altar, the priests and the soldier, have ever made war on 
the people. It is the same to-day. In almost every age efforts have been 
made to reform the Church, to diminish its power, to free it from corrup- 
tion. Rivers of blood have been shed, and thousands of martyrs have 
given up their lives for the purification of the Church. But the Church 
is still the great engine for enslaving the minds of men, for binding man- 
kind in ignorance and superstition. And the same with the State. For 
how many generations have not the best of nature's nobles laboured and 
suffered and died in their endeavours to reform the State. But the State 
is still supreme. It is still the great centre of despotism, still the seat of 



35° Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

centralized tyranny. It still claims unquestioned obedience to its decrees. 
The State, like the Church, is a relic of barbarism. If we would raise men 
to dignity, in place of the Church we must have a free and rational system 
of education. If we would raise man to liberty, in place of the State we 
must have the free organization of society." ("Our Task To-day," 
"The Commonweal, " VoL 4, No. 137.) 

We shall conclude our labors by setting down more than 
half a hundred enumerations of what shall not be in order to 
make place for "The Nation of Fatherless Children." 

1 st. Wages are abolished. 
2d. Capital is abolished. 

3d. Private property is abolished. 

4th. Failures become an impossibility. 

5th. Money will be a chimera. 

6th. The relation of master and servant disappears. 

7th. The ruling class expires. 

8th. The proletariat extinguishes itself. 

9th. Classes are abolished. 

10th. In social relations the state becomes superfluous. 

nth. Government over persons is abolished. 

12th. Ministers disappear, 

13th. Representatives disappear. 

14th. Parliaments disappear. 

15th. Police disappear. 

1 6th. Armies disappear. 

17th. Lawyers disappear. 

1 8th. Public prosecutors disappear. 

19th. Law courts disappear. 

20th. Prisons disappear. 

2 1 st. Civil law disappears. 

2 2d. Civil society disappears. 
23d. Taxes disappear. 

24th. Tax gatherers disappear. 

25th. Political power is abolished. 

26th. Officeholders disappear. 

27th. The entire political apparatus is abolished. 

28th. Political government is abolished. 

29th. Binding contracts will be obsolete. 

30th. Economic inequality will disappear. 



Abolition of the State. 351 

31st. Prostitution will disappear. 

33d. Civil marriage will disappear. 

33d. Ecclesiastical marriage will disappear. 

34th. Divorce courts will disappear. 

35th. Parental authority over children will disappear. 

36th. The private household will disappear. 

37th. The right of inheritance will disappear. 

38th. The Christian family will disappear. 

39th. The Altar is abolished. 

40th. The Throne is abolished. 

41st. Religion expires. 

4 2d. Tramps will be unknown. 

43d. Vagabonds will be unknown. 

44th. Thieves will be unknown. 

45th. Perjurers will be unknown. 

46th. Counterfeiters will be unknown. 

47th. Fraud will be unknown. 

48th. Hatred will be unknown. 

49th. Revenge will be unknown. 

50th. Arson will be unknown. 

51st. Murder will be unknown. 

5 2d. Blasphemy will be unknown. 

53d. God will be unknown, 

54th. The State will die out. 

55th. Civilization ceases to be. 

Aye, truly, the assault upon our country calls brave men 
to its defense. 



352 Socialism: the Nation or Fatherless Children. 

INDEX. 
A 

Abbott, Leonard D. (Assoc. Editor, Current Literature, See Darwin 

and Marx), 69, 164 287. 
Abortion, See Conception, Prevention of. 
Addams, Jane, 225. 
Adler, 94. 

Advance, The, 107, 120, 133, 295. 
America (Catholic, N. Y. Weekly), 77, 124. 
American Society of Medical Sociology, 260. 
American Journal of Urology, 260. 
Anarchists, 150, 164, 199, 212, 221, 248, 339, 345. 
Anarchism and Socialism (Plechanoff), 267, 337. 
Andreieve, See Gorky. 
Appeal To Reason, The (Weekly, Girard, Kan.) VI., VII., 1, 4, 7 , 26, 

37, 141, 142, 202, 257, 311, 317, 343. 
Atheism, Atheist (See Political Atheism), 37, 67, 71, 75, 77, 154, 17^ 

200, 201, 206, 207, 223, 229, 230, 238, 252, 257, 267, 268. 

280, 292, 294, 307, 321, 343. 
Atlantic Monthly, 224. 
Austria, 78, 144. 

Austrian Socialist Party, See Platforms. 
Avanti (Daily, Italy), 106, 143, 185. 
Aveling, Edward Bibbins (See Student's Darwin; Student's Marx), 24, 

25, 94, 267 to 274 inc. 
Aveling, Eleanor Marx, 24, 276 to 274 inc. 

B 

Balch, Dr. Emily Green, 277. 
Barcelona, no, 213, 263. 

Barnes, J. Mahlon (Nat. Sec'ty Socialist Party), 42, 43, 318. 
Bax, Ernest Belfort (See Ethics of Socialism; Outlooks from a New Stand- 
point; Problems of Reality; Religion of Socialism), 

6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 20, 21, 24, 88, 92, 97, 122. 

146, 174, 175, 177, 178, 244, 249, 273, 285, 

3 2 9» 348. 
Beard, Prof. Charles A., 277. 

Bebel, August (See Woman, etc.), 17, 92, 94, 95, 126, 148, 188, 189, 
190, 191, 224, 238, 245, 268, 271, 273, 285, 327, 343, 
345. 347.348. 
Belgium, 34, 35, 63, 144, 185, 295. 
Ben tall, 25. 

Berger, Victor L., 13, 15, 16, 297, 308, 317, 343, 344. 
Between C&sar and Jesus (Herron), 294. 
Biographical Memoirs of Karl Marx ( Liebknecht), 157. 



Index. 353 

Bismarck, 106. 

Bliss, W. D. P. See Encyclopedia of Social Reforms, 

Block, Mrs. Anita C, 332, 335. 

Bolsche, Wilhelm, See- Evolution of Man. 

Bransteter, Winnie, 189. 

Breckon, 25. 

Brooks, John Graham, See Social Unrest. 

Brown, Rev. William Thurston, 132, 135, 136, 138, 250, 286, 287, 288, 

290, 293. 
Bruere, Robert W., 277, 

c 

Call, Tlie N. Y. Daily (Editor-in-Chief, Algernon Lee, up tojuly, 1909; 
Herman Simpson, from July, 1909 to April, 191 1 ; 
Frank MacDonald, from April, 1911), VI., 7. 
17, 32, 44, 82, 94, 101, no, 120, 130, 136, 160, 
175, 181, 213, 223, 224, 232, 235, 237, 241, 258, 
259, 260, 261, 311, 317, 330, 332, 334, 33%- 
Capital (Marx), 7, 8, 24, 38, 30, 45, 83, 185, 198, 203, 204, 268. 
Capital (See Private Property), 13, 46, 48, 56, 62, 64, 89, 154, 157, 219, 

326, 327, 345. 
Carey, James F. (See Menace of Socialism), 40, 123, 252, 253, 254, 317. 
Carmagnole, 145. 
Carpenter, Edward (See Love's Coming of Age), 164, 165, 167, 168, 239, 

240, 273. 
Carr, Rev. Edward Ellis. (See Christian Socialist), 14, 27, 41, 43, 10 i, 

315 to 322 inc. 
Catholic Belief (Di Bruno), 214, 215. 
Chase, John C, 60. 
Chicago Daily Socialist (A. M. Simon, Editor up to 191 1), VI., 13. 5.;, 

60, 317. 
Chicago Socialist (Weekly), VI., 81, 232, 234. 
Children. (See Homeless Children), 161, 170, 171, 172, 174, 181, 18;, 

205, 216, 218, 2.95, 301, 327, 329, 332, 335, 345, 346. 
Christian Democracy (Leo XIII.), 106, 308. 

Christianity, 5, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18 to 31, 37, 44, 45, 48, 53, 69, 70, 92. 
102, 106, 107, 113, 120, 121, 122, 127, 129, 130, 132, 
134, 141, i47» 148,193. 194, 207, 222, 23^, 2.75, 29.8. 

3°°. 3°3, 3 2I » 3 22 . 345- 
Christian Socialism, n, 12, 14, 20, 21, 29, 34. 
Christian Socialist (Weekly, Rev. E. E. Carr, Editor), 40, 41, 42, 43, 287, 

316, 317, 318, 320, 321, 322. 
Christian Socialists, 35, ioo, 101. 

Churches, 5, 6, 10, 15, 21, 32, 23, 29, 53, 91, 92, 94, 95, 9S, 100, 101, 102 
105,107,108,111, 112, 128, 129, 131, 137. 138, 140, 141. 
145, 148, 169, 178, 180, 187, 193. 190, 204, 213 214. 21C?. 



354 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

224, 22.9, 231, 240, 243, 246, 255, 258, 259, 262, 266, 278, 
280, 281, 283, 284, 288, 299, 300, 301, 302, 307, 336, 348, 

35°. 
Classes, Class-Conscious, Class Hatred, 21, 22, 23, 26, 48, 56, 57, 60, 62. 

73, 80, 81, 82, 84, 88, 95, 98, 101, 112, 113, 
1x8, i2i, 129, 130, 131, 142, 143, 156, 168. 
193, 206, 210, 229, 238, 246, 259, 260,-265. 
267, 277, 282, 293, 298, 302, 3-1-5, 324, 325. 

327. 335. 336, 339, 345, 347^ 348, 35°- 
Clericals, See Priests. 
Color, Hon. Bird, 156. 

Colleges (Established by the Church), 109, 134. 
Coming Nation (Weekly), 60, 155, 271. 272, 286. 
Commercial Crisis of the Nineteenth Century (Hyndman), 62. 
Commonweal (England, Weekly), 9, 132, 139. 
Communists, Communards, ^^, 48, 157. 
Communist League, 18, 

Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), 7, 18, 19, 28, 29, 35, 48, 69, 82. 
106, 113, 135, 140, 157, 158, 159, 198, 202, 204, 
241, 243, 317, 340, 347. 
Comrade (Monthly, John Spargo, Editor, up to June, 1904), 9, 12, 27, 135, 

141, 164, 203, 248, 277. 
Conception, Prevention of, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 284. 
Condition of Labor (Leo XIII.), 246, 253, 254, 308. 
Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (Engels). 125, 198, 

200, 308. 
Confiscation, 3, 46, 83, 122, 343, 345, 349. 

Congregationalist (Weekly), 280, 302. : 

Congresses, See International Socialist Congresses. 
Corbin, Mrs. Caroline, 271 to 274 inc, 
Corrigan, Archbishop, 44. 
Critic and Guide, 360. 
Critique of Political Economy (Marx), 86. 

D 

Darwin, Darwinian (See Evolution), 66, 68, 69, 70, 73. 

Darwin and Marx (Abbott) 68, 94. 

Das Kapital, See Capital, (Marx). 

Debs, Eugene V., VII., 26, 47, 58, 59, 92, 93, 274, 309, 310. 

Debs, Theodore, 26. 

De Leon, Daniel (Editor, People, Daily and Weekly), 21, 24, 38, 58, 

59, 34i. 
Deville, Gabriel (See State and Socialism; Socialism, Revolution and Inter- 

nationalism), 241, 325, 337. 
Devine, 15. 
Di Bruno, Very Rev. Joseph Faa", D.D., See Catholic Belief. 



Index. 355 

Dietzgen, Joseph (See Philosophical Essays), 30, 97, 128, 175. 

Divorce, 87, 88, 153, 160, 171, 175, 184, 207, 211, 222, 223, 245, 271, 277, 

278, 279, 280, 284, 286, 294, 295, 300, 301, 309, 311. 
Dfiehring, 2. 



E 

Earle, 320. 

Economic Determinism, 3, 13, 37, 49, 67, 70, 76, 80, 93, 94, 112, 123, 132. 

134, 135. 140, 159. 160, 174, 184, 185, 193, 
209, 220, 224, 233, 267, 268, 298, 315. 

Economic Evolution, 21 to 24 inc. 

Economic Foundations of Society (Loria), 113. 

Eddy, Mary Baker G., See Science and Health. 

Edinburgh Socialist (Monthly), 270. 

Bills, Rev. John, 312. 

Emerson, 137. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, 10, 27. 

Encyclopedia of Social Reforms (Bliss), 126, 241. 

Engels, Frederick (See Communist Manifesto; Condition of the Working 
Class; Landmarks of Scientific Socialism; Origin 
of the Family; Roots of Socialist Philosophy; So- 
cialism: Utopian and Scientific), 16, 17, 19, 69, 
83,85, 86, 92, 94, 97. IO °, I2 4, 13 8 . 155, i57> *59. 
174, 198, 202, 203, 208, 210, 211, 216, 218, 219, 
221, 224, 232, 250, 251, 269, 273, 285, 306, 336, 

337, 338, 34o, 345- 
England, 34, 60, 94, in, 124, 144, 216, 268, 295, 340. 
Erfurt Congress (See Platform, Germany), 96, 97. 
Ethics, 18 to 31, 88, 100, 121, 132, 172, 177, 282, 328, 345. 
Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History (Kautsky), 180, 232. 
Ethics of Socialism (Bax), 6, 9, 20, 24. 
Everhard, Miss Mary, See Herron, Mary Everhard. 

Evolution, 66 to 79, 94, 135, 136, 137, 160, 192, 193, 222, 227, 243, 336. 
Evolution of Man (Bolsche), 76. 
Evolution of Property (Lafargue), 120. 

F 

Faith of Our Fathers (Gibbons), 215. 

Family, 1, 3, 10, 11, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 87, 112, 120, 139, 152 to 227 
inc., 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 254, 255, 258, 
263, 264, 280, 281, 282, 284, 285, 286, 293, 294, 295, 298, 
299. 3°°. 3°7, 3 11 , 3 r 5, 3 2 3» 3 2 5. 3 2 6, 328, 329, 330, 332, 
333* 335, 330, 337, 343, 347, 349- 

Fatalism (See Free Will), 86, 246, 256. 

Ferrer, Francisco, See Ferrer Schools. 



356 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Ferrer Schools, 137, 251, 336. 

Ferri, Enrico (See Socialism and Modern Science), 94, 143, 185, 186, 273. 

Fourier, 11, 18, 19, 212. 

France, 33, 34, 98, 99, 100, 124, 149, 183, 184, 185, 212, 263, 285, 295, 325. 

France, Anatole, 137. 

Frederick Engels: His Life, His Work and His Writings (Kautsky), 201, 

202, 340. 

Free Love, 12, 24, 27, 37, 40, 41, 43, 50, 54, 88, 152 to 227 inc., 266, 

267, 268, 271, 285, 287, 292, 294, 307, 310, 316, 317, 320, 
- 

321, 322. 



Free Press, 40, 41, 43. 

Free Speech, 40, 41, 43. 

Free Thought, 98, 99, 130, 148, 149. 

Free Will, 21, 68, 70, 80 to 90 inc., 118, 153, 163, 166, 168, 233, 247. 

French Revolution, 84, 95, 122, 206. 

French Socialist Party, See Platforms. 



Gasson, Rev. Thomas, I., S. J., 253. 

Gay lord, 25. 

George, Henry, See Progress and Poverty. 

Germany (See Erfurt Congress; Halle Congress), 34, 50, 78, 96, 98. 124, 

126, 140, 144, 149, 157, 212, 295. 307, 340. 
Ghent, W. J. (See Mass and Class), 197, 277. 
Gibbons, James Cardinal (See Faith of Our Fathers), 231. 
Giddings, Prof. Franklin H., 277. 
Gillman, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, 249, 277. 
Giovanitti, A. M. (Editor V Proletario) , 102. 
Glasgow Socialist Sunday School Union, 229. 
Glasier, J. Bruce, 132. 
Goebel, George H., 41, 317. 
Goldman, Emma, 221. 
Gorky, Maxim, 312, 313, 320. 
Government, See Political Government. 
Government Ownership, See Public Ownership. 
Great Britain, See England. 
Gruenberg, Benjamin C, 277. 
Grinnell University, 275, 276. 
Guesde, 92, 94. 
Gursenberg, N., 313. 

H 

Haeckel, Prof. Ernest H. (See Riddle of the Universe), 72, 75, 76, 77, 78, 

79, 85, 205. 
Haeckel's Pedigree of Man (Aveling). 24. 



Ini>ex. 357 

Hagerty, Rev. Thomas J., 26. 

Halle Congress, 95. 

Hasenclever, 271, 273. 

Haverhill Social Democrat (Weekly), 34,294,302^ 305. 

Herron, Prof. George D. (See Between Ccesar and Jesus), 4, 5, 107, 123, 

! o 9 ' T' If • o 55, 2n t0 * 8 ' inc " 

284, 285, 286, 287, 290, 292 to 305 inc., 

3 o8 ». 3°9».3*°» 3 2 °- 
Herron, Mrs. Mary Everhard, 276, 278, 279, 293, 301. 
Herron, Mrs. Carrie Rand, 276, 278, 279, 283, 286, 287, 288, 290. 
Hillquit, Morris (See History of Socialism; Socialism in Tlieqry and 

Practice), 13, 14, 35, 40, 113, 269, 276, 277, 310. 
Historical Basis of Socialism (Hyndman), 109, 156, 243. 
History of the Commune of 1871 (Lissagaray), 267. 
History of Socialism (Hillquit), 269. 

Homes, 51, 52, 53, in, 195, 219, 220, 223, 228, 235, 243, 245. 247. 249, 
259,263,264,274,280,293,295,306, 311,325, 331, 333,336. 
Homeless Children (See Children), 228 to 264 inc. 
Hourwich, Prof. I. A., 277. 
Howe, Bertha W., 93. 
Hunter, Robert, 15, 16, 47, 52, 53, 317. 
Huysmans, Camille, 35. 

Hyndman, Henry Mayers (See Commercial Crisis of the igth Century; 

Historical Basis of Socialism), 92, 108, 109, 
no, in, 156, 243, 271, 273. 
I 

Ibsen, 137. 

Immediate Demands, 38, 275. 

Industrial Republic (Sinclair), 329, 341. 

Infanticide, See Conception, Prevention of. 

Ingersol, Robert, 2, 8, 119. 

Inheritance, 216, 243, 245, 246, 347, 351. 

Inquiry Into Socialism (Kirkup), 9, 10, 11, 12, 46. 

International Socialism, 32 to 36 inc., 43, 44, 59, 191, 198, 265, 295. 

International Socialist Congresses, 9, 30, 35, 267, 271, 275. 

International Socialist Review (Monthly, Editors, A. M. Simons up to Jan. 

31, 1908 ; Charles H. Kerr from, Feb. 
1, 1908), VII., 24, 59. 6 9. Mi, 143- 
148, 166, 171, 180, 183, 185, 203, 
239, 281, 287, 292, 309, 317, 328, 

333> 344. 
International Workingmen'a Association, 35, 267. 
Iron Heel (London), 343. 
Italian Socialist Federation, 101. 
Italy, 98, 143, 145, 185, 285. 



358" Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 

Jaures, Jean, 124, 183, * 8 4, 224, 273. 345- 

Jones, Mary, See "Mother" Jones. 

Justice (Weekly, London, Eng.), 127, 144, 158, 164. 

K 

Kelly, Mrs. Florence, 224, 225, 277. 

Kelvin, Lord, See Thompson, Sir William. 

Kerr, Charles H. (Editor, International Socialist Review from Feb. 1, 

190 8 ). 344. 
KiUingbeck, W. B„ VII. 
Kirkup, Thomas, See Inquiry into Socialism, 
Konikow, Dr. Antoinette F., 189, 312, 313, 314. 
Konikow, Dr. Moses J., 312, 313, 314. 
Kotsch, Georgia, 333. 
Krehbiel, Lueila R., 334. 



Labriola, 97. 

Ladoff, Isadore (See Passing of Capitalism), 66, 67, 148. 

Lafargue, Paul (See Evolution oj Property ; 'Socialism and the Intellectuals), 

68, 94,-110, 120, 328. 
Lambert, Rev. L. A., See Notes on Ingersol; Tactics of Infidels. 
La Monte, Robert Rives (See Marxism and Ethics; Socialism: Positive a;.d 

Negative), 183, 185, 273, 309, 310, 325, 329, 

337. 33 8 - 
Land, 10, 111, 155, 174, 175, 243, 286, 294, 347- 
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism (Engels), 83, 85, 198. 
Lassalle, 251. 

Leatham, James, See Socialism and Character, 
Lee, Algernon (Editor, The Worker; Ed. The Call up to July, 1909), 54, 

112, 113, 277. 
Le Galienne, Richard, 290. 
Leiserson, William N., 277. 
Lemon, Courtney, 260. 
Leo XIII, See Pope Leo. 
Lewis, Arthur Morris, 13, 14, 130. 
Lewis, Lena Morrow, 76, 317, 318, 319, 320, 330, 331. 
Liebknecht, Wilhelm (See Biographical Memoirs of Karl Marx; Socialism: 

What, etc.), 17, 94. 95. * a 3» **4, 157-. 158, 25*. 

252, 253, 267, 269, 345- 
Little Socialist (Monthly), 230, 231. 
London, Jack (See Iron Heel), 342, 343. 
Loria Achille (See Economic Foundations of Society), 97, 114, 115. 



Index. 359 

Low's Coming-of-Age (Carpenter), 164, 165, x66, 239. 
UProleiario (Weekly), 102. 
Lucifer, 184, 

M 

Maeterlinch, 137. 

Mailly, William, 290. 

Maison du Peuple, 35, 

Malkiel, Theresa, 189. 

Manifesto, See Communist Manifesto. 

Marcus, Bernard, 312. 

Marcy, Mary E. (Associate Ed. Int. Soc. Review). See Out of the Dumps. 

Marr, Wilhelm, 149. 

Marriage, (See Free Love), 9, 10, 29, 49, 50,51,52,54,111,112,240,241, 
243, 245, 258, 260, 261, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 
272, 273, 282, 283, 288, 289, 290, 291, 294, 295, 296, 300, 
301, 304, 328, 329, 331, 333 , 337, 345. 

Marx, Karl (See Capital; Communist Manifesto; Critique of Political 
Economy; Origin of the Family), 5, 7, 10, 12, 16, 17, 19, 
24, 3°. 54, 66, 67, 68, 69, 85, 86, 92, 94, 95, 97, 100, 126, 
130, 138, 147, 157, 159, 174, 190, 198, 202, 203, 208, 200, 
210, 211, 2 1 6, 218, 219, 221, 250, 251, 267, 268, 269, 271, 
273, 276, 285, 298, 306, 325, 335, 336, 340, 345, 347- 

Marxian, Marxism, 34, 35, 64, 89, 97, 213. 

Marxism and Ethics (La Monte), 29. 

Mass and Class (Ghent), 197. 

Massachusetts State Convention (1902) S. P., 12, 96, 307. 

Materialist Conception of History (See Economic Determinism), 8, 51, 56^ 

66, 67, 80, 81, no, 112, 131, 
192, 204. 

Materialist Doctrine of Socialism, 4 to 7 inc. 

Materialist Monism, See Monism. 

McGrady, Rev. Thomas, 7, 8, 26, 92, 93. 

Medical Review of Reviews, 2 60. 

Menace of Socialism (Carey), 253. 

Messmer, Archbishop, 16. 

Mills, Walter Thomas, 80. 

Milwaukee, 39, 130, 179, 309. 

Ministers, 14, 23, 25, 129, 131, 134, 138, 140, 263, 280, 281, 284, 302. 

Mitchell, John, 113, 201. 

Modernism, 21, 22, 67, 224. 

Money, 44. 45. 348, 350. 

Monism, 35, 66, 67, 63, 69, 76, 109, no, in, 131, 235. 

Montefiore, Dora B., 181, 182. 

Morals, Morality, 4, 5, 11, 12, 29, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 68, S3, 84, S8, 89, no, 
112, 115, 117, 121, 122, 132, 134, 150, 153, 170. 



360 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 



173, 175, 


I77» 


I78, l8o, 


184, 


196, 197, 206, 219 


221, 222, 


223, 


228, 23O, 


23*, 


233, 245, 282, 283 


301, 30S, 


309, 


3 I0 » 3 12 , 


3*7- 


, 



Morals and Socialism, 122. 

Morally Irresponsible (See Free Will), 80 to 90 inc. 
Morgan, Lewis H., 201, 202, 203, 204. 
Morgan, Thomas J. (See Provoker), 41, 43, 316. 

Morris, William (See News From Nowhere; Socialism: Its Growth and Out- 
come), 9, 92, 170, 244, 248, 249, 250, 329. 
"Mother" Jones, 40, 41, 316, 321. 
Municipal Ownership, See Public Ownership. 
Muzzey, Prof. D. S., 277. 

N 

National Civic Federation, 60. 

National Congress Socialist Party (1910), 181, 316. 

National Executive Committee, See Socialist Party, N. E. C. 

Natural Rights, 81, 82, 84, 117. 

National Woman's Committee, Socialist Party, 189, 312, 315, 330. 

News From Nowliere (Morris), 170, 248. 

Notes On Ingersol (Lambert), 119. 

Noyes, Prof. William ,277. 

o 

O'Connell, Archbishop William H., 263. 

Official Bulletin (Socialist Party, Monthly), 42, 43, 320, 321, 322. 

Older, Mrs. Fremont, See Socialist and tlic Prince. 

Oppenheimer, Mrs., 189. 

Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Engels), 54, 189, 191, 

198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 2IO, 
211, 2l6, 217, 2l8, 220, 221, 222, 223, 246, 247. 

317, 326, 335, 33 6 - 
O'Sullivan, Rev. Dennis T., S. J., 74. 
Outlooks From a New Standpoint (Bax), 9, 175, 178, 348. 
Out of the Dumps (Marcey), 24. 
Owen, Robert, 11, 18, 19, 256. 



Pantheism, 67, 75, 89. 

Parsons, Dr. Elsie, 181. 

Passage, W. W., 47. 

Passing of Capitalism (Ladoff), 66, 67. 

Patriotism, 37, 101, 149, 230, 231, 263. 

Patterson, Dr. Charles Brodie, 288. 

People (Daniel De Leon, Editor). 



Index. . - . . . 361 

Daily, 43. 57. 1 3&> 26 9- 
Weekly, 22, 44, 68, 95, 122, 124, 198. 
Peoples Press (Weekly), 141. 
Philosophical Essays (Dietzgen), 30, 127. 
Platforms : 

Social Democratic Party (Germany), 96, 252. 
Social Democratic Party (U. S.), 44- 
Socialist Labor Party (U. S.), 44, 57. 
Socialist Party (Austria), 99, 121. 
Socialist Party (France), 98. 
Socialist Party (Spain), 99. 

Socialist Party (U. S. 1908; See Socialist Convention), 13 to 
17, inc., 34, 44, 47. 55- 5$, 61, 63, 70, 84, 
100, 140, 218. 
Plechanoff, George (See Anarchism and Socialism), 17, 94. 
Political Atheism, 91 to 151 inc. 
Political Government (See State), 55, 338. 
Poltanovitza, Michael, 312. 
Pope, Adrian IV., 108. 
Pope Leo XIII (See Christian Democracy; Condition of Labor), 33, 106, 

127, 140, 225, 246, 253. 
Pope Pius VII., 216. 
Pope Sixtus V., 108. 
Portugal, 100. 

Poverty of Philosophy (Marx), 347. 
Priests, Priestcraft, 10, 25, 26, 28, 29, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 108, 109, 

in, i3 8 > 139, Mi, 145. 288, 293, 348. 
Private Property, 3, 29, 33, 45, 4», 49. 5°. 55, 56, 61, 64, 83, 117, n8, 119 
120, 124, 154, 155, 159, 180, 184, 192, 196, 207, 

2o8, 209, 211, 2l6, 217, 2l8, 220, 221, 241, 243, 244, 
245, 246, 247, 249, 253, 254, 315, 323, 324, 326, 23 2, 

333> 343, 345, 347, 349, 35°- 
Problems of Reality (Bax), 88. 
Progress and Poverty (George), 72. 
Progressive Woman (Monthly), 189. 
Property, See Private Property. 
Prophecies, 340, 341, 342, 343- 

Prostitution, 48, 52, 53, 54, 157, 159, 160, 161, 175, 177, 179, 181, 193, i 94i 
195, 212, 216, 218, 219, 241, 267, 310, 319, 329, 345, 351. 
Provoker (Weekly, Thomas J. Morgan, Editor), 41. 42. 43, 
Public Ownership, 55 to 64 inc., 338. 

o 

Quigley, Bishop, 44, 106, 221. 
Quelch, Henry (Editor, Justice), 144. 



[62 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children. 



Race Suicide, See Conception, Prevention of. 

Rand, Miss, See Herron, Carrie Rand. 

Rand, Mrs. Elizabeth D., 275, 276, 290, 291, 302. 

Rand School, 232, 276, 277, 308, 310. 

Rappaport, Harold, 100. 

Reform (See Immediate Demands), ^t,, 38, 55, 56, 57, 298, 

Reformation, 15, 121, 139, 140, 321. 

Remuneration. (See Wages), 46, 47, 327. 

Religion (See Political Atheism), 4 to 8 inc., 10, 12 to 16 inc., 19, 24, 
28, 30, 45, 68, 69, 70, 73 to 76 inc., 79, 80, 81, 88, 154, 155, 
166, 167, 168, 173, 175, 178, 183, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 
194, 199, 201, 206, 208, 214, 221, 222, 223, 226, 227, 
228, 236 to 239 inc., 241, 242, 249, 251, 252, 254 to 257 inc., 
261, 262, 266, 267, 283, 286, 288, 306, 307, 321, 324, 325, 

3 2 9> 343. 345. 351- 
Religion of Socialism (Bax), 122, 146, 349. 
Revolt (Weekly), 345. 

Revolution (See French Revolution), 10,49, 54. 55. 57. IIQ . IXI . ll 3> r 39» 
145, 201, 224, 243 249, 282, 298, 302, 315, 330, 339, 343. 
Revolutionary, 38, 58, 61, 344. 
Revolutionists (See Impossibilists), 56, 156. 
Riddle of The Universe (Haeckel), 77. 
Road To Power (Kautsky), 89. 
Robinson, Dr. William J., 260, 261, 262. 
Roosevelt, Col. Theodore, 45, 46, 47, 258, 259, 260, 309, 310 
Roots of Socialist Philosophy (Engels), 121, 198, 199. 
Rousseau, 16, 247. 
Russell, Charles Edward, 285. 

s 

Saint Simon, 11, 18, 19. 

Sanial, 57. 

Sawyer, Rev. Roland D., 160, 175, 241, 258, 259. 

Schools (See Ferrer), 96, 156, 237, 251, 252, 254, 257, 263, 314, 329. 

Science and Health (Eddy), 191. 

Science and Revolution (Untermann), 66. 

Scudder, Prof. Vida D., 223, 224, 277. 

Se-mpre Avanti, See Avanii. 

Sex, 48, 49, 50, 52, 88, 101, 112, 153, 161, 162, 164 to 170 inc., 174, 175, 
176, 178, 180, 181, 185 to 188 inc., 193, 196, 197, 199, 200, 
201, 209, 210, 212, 216, 218 to 223 inc., 228, 239, 240, 241, 245, 
247, 248, 259, 265, 267 to 270 inc., 284, 294, 299, 306, 3x0, 

3*5, 3*9. 3 2 3> 3 2 7, 33 l > 337- 
Shaw, Rev. Anna Howard, 21, 22. 

Shaw, George Bernard, 137, 335. 



Index. 363 

Sherman, Rev. Thomas, S. J., 50, 169, 179, 180, 272, 373. 

Simons, A. M. (Editor, Int. Soc. Review, up to Feb., 1908), 51, 52. 

Simons, May Wood (See Woman and the Social Problem), 189, 331, 332. 

Simpson, Herman (Editor, The Call, July, 1909 to April, 191 1), 32. 

Sinclair, Upton (See Industrial Republic), 160, 329, 341. 

Sketchley, J., 139, 348. 

Slusser, W. B., 318.. 

Social Democrat (England, Monthly), 6, 122, 143, 144, 174, 270. 

Social Democratic Herald (Weekly), VI., 50, 53, 103, 11 1, 179, 180, 272, 

273, 308, 344. 

Social Democratic Party (Germany), 124, 140, 188, 267, 269. 

Social Democratic Party (Great Britain), 9, 62, 108, 144. 

Social Democratic Party (U. S.), 19, 43, 44, 59, 106. 

Social Democrats, 35, 50. 

Socialism, See Christian Socialism; International Socialism. 

Socialism, Socialist, Origin of Term, 18. 

Socialism, Denned, 1, 3, 11, 36, 50, 55, $7, 66, 67, 81, 94, 100, 145, 146, 

344, 345- 

So cialism , Varieties ,32,35. 

Socialism and Character (Leatham ), 27,92,125. 

Socialism and the Intellectuals (Lafargue), 68. 

Socialism and Modern Science (Ferri), 68, 70, 87, 98, 186, 187. 

Socialism: A Summary and Interpretation of Its Principles (Sparge), 47, 

255, 256. 

Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome (Morris and Bax), 9, 171, 244, 328, 

Socialism: Positive and Negative (La Monte), 29, 183, 329, 338. 

Socialism: Revolution and Internationalism (Deville), 84. 

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Engels), 1, 4, 6, 24, 62, 69, 73, 94, 

198, 204, 339. 

Socialism: What It is And What It Seeks To Accomplish (Liebknecht), 99 j' 

160, 252, 255. 

Social Revolution (Kautsky), 55, 246. 

Social Unrest (Brooks), 95. 

Socialist Congresses. See International Socialist Congresses. 

Socialist Labor Party, 19, 38, 43, 44, 48, 57, 59, 189, 269, 274, 277. 

Socialist Leaders, 265 to 323 inc. 

Socialist Party (See National Congress S. P.; National Woman's Com- 
mittee ; Platform), 5, 15, 19, 41, 44, 45, 58, 59, 60, in. 
112, 118, 131, 133, 139, 150, 179, 183, 180. 250, 251. 
294, 307, 317, 320, 321, 343. 

Socialist Party, National Executive Committee, 6, 41, 42, 113, 190, 255. 

316, 317.330- 
Socialist Party Official Bulletin, See Official Bulletin. 
Socialist Review (Monthly), 166. 
Socialist, Seattle (Weekly), 258. 

Socialist Spirit (Monthly), 123, 128, 132, 140, 165, 250. 
Socialist Sunday Schools, 228, 220, 231, 232, 331. 



364 Socialism: the Nation of Fatherless Children, 

Socialist Sunday School Union, 230, 232, 233, 236, 237. 

Socialist Tactics, 37 to 54 inc. 

Socialist Woman (Monthly), 189. 

Socialist Wedding, 276, 287, 292, 293, 301. 

Soul of Man Under Socialism (Wilde), 155, 156. 

Spain (See Barcelona), 100, 137, 145, 285. 

Spargo.John (See Comrade; Socialism: A Summary, etc.), 46, 93, 251-,' 
255, 256, 277, 317. 

Starkweather, Bertha Wilkins, 320. 

St. Thomas of Aquin, 247, 254, 303. 

State, 3, 27, 29, 60 to 63 inc., 95, 98, 101, 111, 112, 128, 134, 137, 139^ 
148, 149, 151, 169, 183, 188, 191, 192, 193, 199, 201, 2ii, 214, 
221, 240, 244 to 247 inc., 255 to 258 inc., 265, 288, 324 to 351 
inc. 

State and Socialism (Deville), 325, 327, 345. 

Stern, Meta L. (Translator of 50th Edition of Bebel's Woman), 189. 

Stirton, A. M. (See Wage Slave), 23,25. 

Stokes, Phelps, 47. 

Stokes, Rose Pastor, 46, 47. 

Strickland, Frederick G., 13, 25. 

Student's Darwin (Aveling), 24. 

Student's Marx (Aveling), 24. 

Suffrage, See Woman Suffrage. 

Sunday Schools, See Socialist Sunday Schools. 



Tactics of Infidels (Lambert), 119, 206. 

Taft, 230. 

Thompson, Carl D., 25, 190, 191. 

Thompson, Sir William, 73, 74, 75. 

Thoreau, 137. 

To-Day (Monthly, England), 25. 

Toledo Socialist (Weekly), 76. 

Trade Unions, 105, 106, 297. 

Tyng, Mary, 259. 

u 

Untermann, Ernest (See Science and Revolution), 5. 28, 59, 66, $91, 203 



Vander Porten, 15. 

Vandervelde, Emile, 144. 

Voncdrts (German, Daily), 99, 148, 188. 



Index. 365 

W 

Wage Slave (Weekly), 23, 107, 230, 338. 

Wages (See Remuneration), 326, 327. 

Walling, William English, 61, 299, 320. 

Wanhope, Joseph, 342. 

Wayland's Monthly, 93, 

Wells, H. G., 137, 330. 

Wentworth, Franklin H. (See Liicifer; Socialist Spirit) , 25, 128, 130, 140, 

165, 184, 290, 312. 
Wentworth, Marion Craig, 165. 
What's- So And What Isn't (Work), 47. 
White, Rev. Eliot, 14. 
Whitman, 137. 

Wilshire, Gay lord, See Wilshire's Magazine. 
Wilshire's Magazine, 29, 130, 155, 156, 340, 341. 
Woman and Marriage (Ellis), 156. 

Woman and Socialism (Bebel), 53, 62, 86, 95, 121, 123, 183, 188, 189, 190, 
191, 195, 238, 245, 267, 317, 324, 326, 327, 

337, 33 8 , 347, 348. 
Woman and the Social Problem (Simons), 332. 
Woman of the Past, Present and Future (Bebel), 72, 73, 76, 343. 
Woman Suffrage, 21, 22, 181, 211, 223, 251, 298, 330. 
Work (See What's So And What Isn't), 13, 47. 
Worker (Weekly), 35, 44, 99, 105, 106, 107, in, 130, 141, 173, 203, 204, 

221, 222, 231, 275, 294, 297, 298, 299, 309, 342. 
Wright, Hon. Carroll D., 207. 

Y 

Young Socialist (Monthly), 229. 



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